I’m sure we’re all aware of the memory price increases due to the AI hype, but it’s helpful to see the trends over time. Heck, maybe these graphs could be a good indicator to watch for if/when the bubble pops.
I’m sure we’re all aware of the memory price increases due to the AI hype, but it’s helpful to see the trends over time. Heck, maybe these graphs could be a good indicator to watch for if/when the bubble pops.
Please understand that this is not due to any sort of bubble. Especially not with memory.
OpenAI has themselves purchased a significant percentage of the world’s memory production for 2026. The negotiated in secret with two different manufacturers, announcing the deals on the same day. Neither manufacturer was aware of the other, and both have said if they were they would not have made the deal as it sent a significant percentage of the world’s memory production to one customer.
More interestingly, the deal was not for memory chips. It was for finished wafers, which themselves have to then be sliced into hundreds of individual chips, which each need to be tested and packaged in the black casing we call a chip. As far as I am aware, OpenAI has no capability to do this. Which means they may have purchased a significant percentage of the world’s memory output only to throw it in the garbage and keep it from their competitors.
My understanding however is that this deal was for 2026 production. Go to next year, there may be an improvement.
Fair point. I can see how a bubble burst might not recover those discarded wafers, assuming that story is true. However, I’d still imagine that if the bubble did burst, there would naturally be a reduction in demand for memory, and that would cool prices at least a bit. Certainly time will tell. It’s still difficult to predict the direction this is all going in.