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Is there an end to the RAM crisis?
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fixmycode feddit.cl fixmycode@feddit.cl
Joined: 2023-06-12
Quote

for me RAM is a perfected technology, new buses will come, more speed, but it will fundamentally be the same manufacturing process, same materials. The prospect is that LLMs will keep getting larger, more RAM will be required, and the prices will keep getting higher, or along the curve, while the demand will keep up with it because everything has RAM in it. Do you see a point in the future where the industry forks out of this, and there's an alternative where the end user is not affected as much from the demand of this resource?

68   Original
ByteMe lemmy.world ByteMe@lemmy.world
Joined: 2024-02-21
#2 · Quote Reply

[deleted]
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traceur402 lemmy.blahaj.zone traceur402@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2025-09-13
#3 · Quote Reply

I'd say it's certainly possible for the economics and business strategy to shift in a manner where consumers get a much worse deal like this indefinitely. But it's really haad to say if it's actually going to play out that way or we experience a return to the previous equilibrium

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slazer2au lemmy.world slazer2au@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-30
#4 · Quote Reply

[deleted]

But this is a supply problem. Not a demand one.

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slazer2au lemmy.world slazer2au@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-30
#5 · Quote Reply

1 of 2 things will need to happen for the shortage to be resolved.

  1. A new fabrication will need to be brought online or
  2. The companies that have purchased the fabrication time cancel their order because they go bust.

I believe 2 will happen before 1 because 1 will take several years to happen.

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its_kim_love lemmy.blahaj.zone its_kim_love@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2025-10-14
#6 · Quote Reply

But this is a supply problem. Not a demand one.

This is like that meme where one person is pointing at a 6 and the other is seeing 9.

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HobbitFoot thelemmy.club HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club
Joined: 2023-06-16
#7 · Quote Reply

1 of 2 things will need to happen for the shortage to be resolved. A new fabrication will need to be brought online or The companies that have purchased the fabrication time cancel their order because they go bust. I believe 2 will happen before 1 because 1 will take several years to happen.

I expect that China is likely investing in 1 due to industrial policy. When 2 happens, it is going to collapse the industry.

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ftothe3 lemmy.world ftothe3@lemmy.world
Joined: 2025-06-10
#8 · Quote Reply

1 of 2 things will need to happen for the shortage to be resolved. A new fabrication will need to be brought online or The companies that have purchased the fabrication time cancel their order because they go bust. I believe 2 will happen before 1 because 1 will take several years to happen.

Agreed. They are building new factories now that will come online in several years

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Sanctus anarchist.nexus Sanctus@anarchist.nexus
Joined: 2025-09-08
#9 · Quote Reply

It will end when western society crashes in 2 more years.

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Korkki lemmy.ml Korkki@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2025-02-08
#10 · Quote Reply

1 of 2 things will need to happen for the shortage to be resolved. A new fabrication will need to be brought online or The companies that have purchased the fabrication time cancel their order because they go bust. I believe 2 will happen before 1 because 1 will take several years to happen.

The Chinese could do some coordinated push to take marketshare if they have state backing and are willing to accept medium term losses.

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Zak lemmy.world Zak@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-11
#11 · Quote Reply

Either the AI bubble pops and the demand drops, or the AI industry becomes stable and supply increases.

I'm inclined to bet on the bubble popping. There are real businesses to be built on top of generative AI, but most of the current players have high costs and a long way to go before their revenue comes even close.

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MatSeFi lemmy.liebeleu.de MatSeFi@lemmy.liebeleu.de
Joined: 2026-02-18
#12 · Quote Reply

1 of 2 things will need to happen for the shortage to be resolved. A new fabrication will need to be brought online or The companies that have purchased the fabrication time cancel their order because they go bust. I believe 2 will happen before 1 because 1 will take several years to happen.
  1. Technology breakthrough: Manufacturing more ram for less money.
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dracc discuss.tchncs.de dracc@discuss.tchncs.de
Joined: 2025-09-25
#13 · Quote Reply

Agreed. They are building new factories now that will come online in several years

Who are "they"? The current crisis is not due to Samsung, SK Hynix or Micron having capacity issues. They don't want to up their production currently as they plan for the AI bubble to burst and sitting on product when that happens will be costly.

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etchinghillside reddthat.com etchinghillside@reddthat.com
Joined: 2023-07-13
#14 · Quote Reply

Don’t worry – monthly RAM subscriptions solve this!

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kibiz0r midwest.social kibiz0r@midwest.social
Joined: 2023-07-14
#15 · Quote Reply

Maybe through CXL you’ll be able to “download more RAM” (renting it, really)

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SmoothIsFast lemmy.world SmoothIsFast@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-12
#16 · Quote Reply

1 of 2 things will need to happen for the shortage to be resolved. A new fabrication will need to be brought online or The companies that have purchased the fabrication time cancel their order because they go bust. I believe 2 will happen before 1 because 1 will take several years to happen.

It will likely be a combination of both. As prices increase, new fabs become more financially lucrative and viable. Demand will also fall as the bubble bursts, but likely will not go back to that it was either.

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Sconrad122 lemmy.world Sconrad122@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-30
#17 · Quote Reply

Technology breakthrough: Manufacturing more ram for less money.

That's just a more handwavy version of 1. Unless you are saying that new technology will come along that will make existing fabrication facilities capable of higher throughput without substantial upgrades/expansions to those facilities? It seems unlikely to happen any sooner than 1 does either way, unless there is a high readiness level technology that's going to massively disrupt the established field of industrial engineering in the next year that I haven't heard anything about

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wizardbeard lemmy.dbzer0.com wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2023-06-16
#18 · Quote Reply

Technology breakthrough: Manufacturing more ram for less money.

Then the current companies buying it will just buy more. So far there isn't significant movement in the space to try and do more with less, and the current strategy is to just keep throwing more resources at it.

I'm not sure there's a point where production could eclipse corporate orders with the current path things appear to be on.

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Beans lemmy.zip HexParte@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2025-06-19
#19 · (edited) Quote Reply

1 of 2 things will need to happen for the shortage to be resolved. A new fabrication will need to be brought online or The companies that have purchased the fabrication time cancel their order because they go bust. I believe 2 will happen before 1 because 1 will take several years to happen.

Gamers Nexus made a video recently where they were discussing a new Chinese company/manufacturer in the RAM game. It’s pretty early on, but looks promising.

For your second point/option: I agree something like this will happen first. But I don’t know if it will be a cancellation on all “fronts.” Microsoft’s CEO stated they HAVE the (DIM) RAM, but they DON’T have the GPU’s. So Nvidia is behind on manufacturing, but Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix have actually got the stock, they’re just ONLY selling to corporations right now (or arbitrarily inflating prices for consumers to meet the inflated price they’re selling to corporations who already have more than they need, but refuse to stop buying).

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slazer2au lemmy.world slazer2au@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-30
#20 · Quote Reply

The Chinese could do some coordinated push to take marketshare if they have state backing and are willing to accept medium term losses.

But then every western government will not allow the import of those products because of "national security"

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leavemealone sh.itjust.works leavemealone@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2023-07-05
#21 · (edited) Quote Reply

Don’t worry – monthly RAM subscriptions solve this!

Let's talk about ram leasing ! We can offer you a brand new pc if you get our 72 months ram leasing contract ! I will even add a ram dissipator if you get our fidelity card !

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whats_a_lemmy midwest.social whats_a_lemmy@midwest.social
Joined: 2025-02-10
#22 · Quote Reply

I'd say it's certainly possible for the economics and business strategy to shift in a manner where consumers get a much worse deal like this indefinitely. But it's really haad to say if it's actually going to play out that way or we experience a return to the previous equilibrium

If enough manufacturers exit the consumer space, like Micron is doing ...

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SaveTheTuaHawk lemmy.ca SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2025-03-07
#23 · Quote Reply

ChatGPT will run out of money April 2027.

Also, more adaptation to Chinese-made RAM. The difference is negligible.

https://www.techspot.com/review/3089-ddr5-made-in-china/

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SaveTheTuaHawk lemmy.ca SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2025-03-07
#24 · Quote Reply

Gamers Nexus made a video recently where they were discussing a new Chinese company/manufacturer in the RAM game. It’s pretty early on, but looks promising. For your second point/option: I agree something like this will happen first. But I don’t know if it will be a cancellation on all “fronts.” Microsoft’s CEO stated they HAVE the (DIM) RAM, but they DON’T have the GPU’s. So Nvidia is behind o...

It’s pretty early on, but looks promising.

CXMT, the difference is negligible.

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SaveTheTuaHawk lemmy.ca SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2025-03-07
#25 · Quote Reply

Agreed. They are building new factories now that will come online in several years

CXMT is already making RAM.

https://www.cxmt.com/en/product.html

https://www.techspot.com/review/3089-ddr5-made-in-china/

Might have to sneak it through Canada.

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SaveTheTuaHawk lemmy.ca SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2025-03-07
#26 · Quote Reply

[deleted]

Supply demand economics? did the Easter Bunny teach you that theory?

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UnspecificGravity piefed.social UnspecificGravity@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-12-03
#27 · Quote Reply

Pretty sure this problem goes away once the Chinese are able to produce either equivalent ram or at least something good enough for manufactures to start using.

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daannii lemmy.world daannii@lemmy.world
Joined: 2025-03-08
#28 · (edited) Quote Reply

Don’t worry – monthly RAM subscriptions solve this!

60 minutes of use for free with subscription. Must sign up for automatic payments.

And then each additional 15 min increments are $20. And the timer is always rounded up per session.

That's nividia's business plan.

Also after 12. Months, the monthly subscription will double and hopefully you won't notice since the payments are automatically taken out of your account.

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t҉̠̙ǵ̣̞̄ͪ͜x̸̱͚̳ͫ͐̑̈ͯͣ̚n̒͌҉͉̦̜̝ͅ lemmy.tgxn.net tgxn@lemmy.tgxn.net
Joined: 2444-05-01
#29 · Quote Reply

ChatGPT will run out of money April 2027. Also, more adaptation to Chinese-made RAM. The difference is negligible. https://www.techspot.com/review/3089-ddr5-made-in-china/

I can't wait till I can purchase China RAM! 👌

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fuckwit_mcbumcrumble lemmy.dbzer0.com fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2024-03-20
#30 · Quote Reply

Not this year at least.

Unless the AI bubble pops it’s going to take a long time for companies to scale up production. As long as AI is still in vogue it’s going to gobble up more and more ram.

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Munkisquisher lemmy.nz Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz
Joined: 2023-07-01
#31 · Quote Reply

Either the AI bubble pops and the demand drops, or the AI industry becomes stable and supply increases. I'm inclined to bet on the bubble popping. There are real businesses to be built on top of generative AI, but most of the current players have high costs and a long way to go before their revenue comes even close.

The bubble popping will be the point where ai companies have to charge what it costs to run these huge models.

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Etterra discuss.online Etterra@discuss.online
Joined: 2024-12-10
#32 · Quote Reply

If Elon was burned down it might help. Wouldn't hurt at least. Well except Elon. Burning is painful as hell.

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NutWrench lemmy.ml NutWrench@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2023-06-20
#33 · Quote Reply

The RAM prices will come down when "AI" finally implodes and the tech bros have finished extracting every last bit of venture capital from idiots.

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Korkki lemmy.ml Korkki@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2025-02-08
#34 · Quote Reply

But then every western government will not allow the import of those products because of "national security"

I would by some backdoored Chinese RAM right about now. I have nothing to hide. if it comes without US five eyes backdoors, all the better.

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☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ lemmy.ml yogthos@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2020-01-18
#35 · Quote Reply

Once Chinese companies ramp up production, there's going to be cheap RAM again. Also, the bubble will pop eventually.

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doodoo_wizard lemmy.ml doodoo_wizard@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2025-12-20
#36 · Quote Reply

No, it’s not coming back.

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deathbird mander.xyz deathbird@mander.xyz
Joined: 2022-03-24
#37 · Quote Reply

There will be a point where LLM investment scales back to fit closer to its actual economic productivity, once these companies and VCs run low on cash to shovel into the furnace. Then the prices will drop.

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PrincessCory lemmy.wtf PrincessCory@lemmy.wtf
Joined: 2025-06-30
#38 · Quote Reply

Listen, principle is this.
When you have suden change thats what you are calling “crisis” if there is more demand than manufacturing process will get bigger and make more.
But that needs time and if you have sudden demand than there is no time to make manufacturing process biger so you get “crysis”.

It will just take a bit of time to make manufacturing process biger and everything will be back to normal.
Or if demand is temporary than there is no need to make manufacturing process bigger, we will just get trough.
So eather way it cant be forever crysis thats nonsense…

-2
PrincessCory lemmy.wtf PrincessCory@lemmy.wtf
Joined: 2025-06-30
#39 · (edited) Quote Reply

ChatGPT will run out of money April 2027. Also, more adaptation to Chinese-made RAM. The difference is negligible. https://www.techspot.com/review/3089-ddr5-made-in-china/

You realy think that big companies work in minus?
Why would they? Youtube was working for years without a single add so did they run out of money..? Do you know how many sites and apps are free? So who is paying for them?
Let me explain to you how software world works.
You make chatgpt and you give it for free to people, than you collect all personal data people tell to chat gpt and you sell that data to powerfull people that control this world from shadows. So you make money and they get info they want and people are bunch of sheep that dont know anything as usual…
And on top of that you make chat gpt premium so some people are paying to be spyed on and you get bonus money and noone is wandering from where you are getting money because there is chat gpt premium and noone know how many people have it and how much money you make of those rare individuals… Wala thank you for reading..

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chaitae3 lemmy.world chaitae3@lemmy.world
Joined: 2024-04-08
#40 · Quote Reply

Once Chinese companies ramp up production, there's going to be cheap RAM again. Also, the bubble will pop eventually.

And why would any of these players invest $100b to lower their product's prices at the risk of overproducing

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☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ lemmy.ml yogthos@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2020-01-18
#41 · Quote Reply

And why would any of these players invest $100b to lower their product's prices at the risk of overproducing

Might want to ask yourself why Chinese companies did this with stuff like solar panels and EVs, and the answer to your question will come to you.

8
slazer2au lemmy.world slazer2au@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-30
#42 · Quote Reply

I would by some backdoored Chinese RAM right about now. I have nothing to hide. if it comes without US five eyes backdoors, all the better.

I have nothing to hide.

What's your bank account number?

5
Luffy lemmy.ml Luffy879@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2023-11-05
#43 · Quote Reply

You realy think that big companies work in minus? Why would they? Youtube was working for years without a single add so did they run out of money..? Do you know how many sites and apps are free? So who is paying for them? Let me explain to you how software world works. You make chatgpt and you give it for free to people, than you collect all personal data people tell to chat gpt and you sell th...

Goddamn what Kind of lobotomy did you get? Full service?

Aside from your apparent phobia to make your text readable via punctuations, here's the main points I found.

  1. The deep state is not a thing. You don't need one if the US exists
  2. User data is not worth the millions openai is shoveling towards datacenters. Even google and others live off of enterprise and subscriptions
  3. Where are you even getting these numbers from? OpenAI publishes their quarterly earnings, and that has clearly shown that they are losing money and rely on investor bailouts
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Hansae lemmy.dbzer0.com Hansae@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2023-06-18
#44 · Quote Reply

Might want to ask yourself why Chinese companies did this with stuff like solar panels and EVs, and the answer to your question will come to you.

Chinese century NGL, even with more complex items such as CPUs and GPUs China is coming along in leaps and bounds .

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☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ lemmy.ml yogthos@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2020-01-18
#45 · Quote Reply

Chinese century NGL, even with more complex items such as CPUs and GPUs China is coming along in leaps and bounds .

Exactly, and the rate of progress there is just stupefying.

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Merva sh.itjust.works Merva@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2023-07-05
#46 · Quote Reply

Once Chinese companies ramp up production, there's going to be cheap RAM again. Also, the bubble will pop eventually.

No. Most of the Chinese RAM production is going to Chinese data centers, as per Chinese government mandate.

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Rubanski discuss.tchncs.de Rubanski@discuss.tchncs.de
Joined: 2025-06-26
#47 · Quote Reply

Once Chinese companies ramp up production, there's going to be cheap RAM again. Also, the bubble will pop eventually.

*RAMp up production

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Random Dent lemmy.ml CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2023-06-01
#48 · Quote Reply

1 of 2 things will need to happen for the shortage to be resolved. A new fabrication will need to be brought online or The companies that have purchased the fabrication time cancel their order because they go bust. I believe 2 will happen before 1 because 1 will take several years to happen.

If we're lucky, maybe there's a sweet spot where new production for RAM ramps up just as the AI companies run out of money and cancel their orders, and then there's suddenly a huge surplus of RAM that they need to unload in a hurry lol.

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slazer2au lemmy.world slazer2au@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-30
#49 · Quote Reply

If we're lucky, maybe there's a sweet spot where new production for RAM ramps up just as the AI companies run out of money and cancel their orders, and then there's suddenly a huge surplus of RAM that they need to unload in a hurry lol.

I don't see that happening, when the bubble pops and the orders are cancelled, the people later in the queue will be brought forward.

1
Piperpiper1 lemmy.ml Piperpiper1@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2025-03-18
#50 · Quote Reply

When the AI bubble pops RAM prices will fall back, but they'll never be as low as they were before AI. AI is going nowhere, it's not quite like the Internet but it's still got its uses. So I think you'll see RAM prices fluctuate with an overall positive slope after the bubble pops.

The days of cheap RAM are over for the most part.

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Orphigle lemmy.ml orphigle@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2025-03-05
#51 · Quote Reply

No. Most of the Chinese RAM production is going to Chinese data centers, as per Chinese government mandate.

Which means Chinese data centers will not buy as much non-chinese RAM any more, so the prices will still fall due to that.

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