• Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org
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    2 days ago

    The RAM and SSD pricing situation is not unique to this project. AI data center demand has sent DDR5 prices through the roof over the past few months

    …and I strongly believe that most of it is just foul play.

    The AI companies are misusing their shitloads of venture capital to play with prices and manipulate the stock market.

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
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      2 days ago

      It is absolutely foul play.

      OpenAI made secret deals with DRAM manufacturers, not for memory chips but for finished wafers straight out of the Fab. Then announced them both on the same day, meaning they had a one fell swoop purchased 50+% of the world’s memory supply for 2026.

      OpenAI does not (as far as anyone knows) have the machinery to process these wafers, to slice them up and package them into memory chips.

      Which means the only purpose of this move was to kill the global DRAM supply and drive up prices for the competition.

      Personally I wish regulators would take a hard look at this deal.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Yup. It’s not real. The vast majority of GPUs delivered in 2025 aren’t plugged in. They still have some 2024 GPUs sitting idle.

      This is all a shell game of fraud.

    • ganryuu@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      I remember reading a few days ago that OpenAI basically ordered 3 times as much RAM as they could use this year. There are also data centers fully equipped but not turned on as the local power grid could not handle the added demand.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        That power grid thing is what will ultimately pop the bubble.

        The lack of last mile fiber is what popped the dot com bubble.

        Turns out, spending a fuckload of money on unusable infrastructure is a bad thing.

    • bryndos@fedia.io
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      2 days ago

      There’s some classic oligopoly/game theory stuff about these sort of tactics. Should be a breach of competition law. Competition law is a joke. Free market for thee not for me.

  • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nz
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    2 days ago

    This is free market capitalism creating competition and demand right? This is supposed to make things better for the consumer right? Because in my non economist mind, this seems like a shit deal for everyone except one small group of people.

    • Limonene@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      In an ideal world, the free market would punish AI investors for being so foolish. In reality, they’ll probably get a bailout when the bubble pops.

    • 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 hours ago

      The trickle down economics is when the bubble bursts but only after billionaires have collectively raised trillions for themselves and you’re the ones to pay to bailout their companies.

  • deleted@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I’m waiting for the ai bubble to burst so I can double my pcs ram to 128gb for 50% off of the normal price.

    • Railcar8095@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Unlikely. They aren’t buying the RAM sticks, they are burying the capacity and making other kinds of RAM.

      A few are hoarding consumer RAM, but it’s neglectable compared with the amount that’s not compared to last year

    • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      I’m more interested in the big enterprise grade NVMe drives. Those can be made to work on normal hardware unlike the HBM RAM.