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Memory crisis expected to last until 2031, supply already allocated for 2026
(www.tweaktown.com)
In a just world, OpenAI would be investigated for market denial...
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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Game developers should focus on making good fun games without pushing the envelope on graphics, or maybe work more on optimizing things.
Microsoft should focus on not making windows a bloated piece of shit that consumes so much memory.
Windows can go fuck itself.
😈
Memory that doesn't exist yet has been bought with money that may never exist to supply datacentres that haven't been built to serve demand that isn't there.
This cyber enron circlejerk wont last that long
The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
Oh no, I saw this coming and bought RAM at the first hike. I'm good for 8 more years. This doesnt help everyone else tho.
Totally stealing Cyber Enron
The AI bubble will pop long before then, and everyone will have more RAM and GPUs than they know what to do with.
looks at housing bubble "............. god i hope you're right"
As much as private equity wants to think it is, housing is not a commodity like DRAM is.
Housing always has a base value in that people always need places to live, so it's price is sticky. The need for DRAM could disappear overnight if it so happened that way.
For the dram unfortunately won't be possible to use it in the consumer space, at least not in the current form. Hbm is really server stuff, and as is, you cannot repurpose it. As for the GPUs, maybe they can be used for the consumer space but I am not entirely sure the specs would be wise to use it at home, since they need some very serious cooling capabilities, as well electricity consumption. Biggest winners of this pop in my opinion would be anyone who need cheap server rack stuff.
Part of it is not finished DRAM that was sold yet, it's wafer capacity at the factory.
Sam Altman has promised orders for a kazillion wafers that don't exist yet. It's been argued this is less legitimate demand and more an effort to crimp the scaling ambitions of other competitors.
If his cheque bounces early on, the manufacturers are likely to reassign his slots to other buyers.
The manufacturers are taking a fair bit of risk though. If they aren't getting paid before work starts, and the bubble pops in the middle, thry could end up with a lot of (partially or fully) finished wafers that they can't just slice up and sell to Corsair and G.Skill.
You are not wrong about the reallocation part. However, if you see the actions from micron (fuck you micron BTW), they are going all in and having a shit storm in PR on the consumer side. If they are taking these risks without proper assurances, then they are utterly deranged
Promises of buying only work if the buyer still exists at the time you produce the goods.
Besides, I'm pretty sure that the main buyers type on the consumer side are PC and phone makers. So they could go back there almost unharmed.
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The RAM for 2026-2031 hasn't been produced. It's the production capacity that's been bought out.
If the AI bubble bursts, the manufacturing can be reassigned.
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A 5 year DRAM shortage is pretty hard to imagine. I have to suspect that's a projection that assumes no AI bubble popping (which given how insanely over-leveraged basically every company involved in the bubble is, its inevitable. They're literally spending more building these datacenters than they can ever dream of recouping once built!) The last DRAM shortage (around 2017-2019 by memory) was only really bad for about a year or so, getting gradually better until it became an absolute glut of DRAM supply that lasted until...well about 3 months ago. $60 per terabyte of SSD storage was glorious, and hopefully I can afford to benefit from the next DRAM glut in 2-5 years
Saw this in the news. They're trying really hard to stack the federal reserve board and send interest rates back down to financial crisis/pandemic levels. AI bubble can have some leg room if interest rates tank
Honestly interest rates dropping might be ultimately be a good thing. The job market is so tight and most recession indicators have already been blazing. I doubt they'll do the same hard drop they did in Q2 of 2020, but I do think more aggressive rate cuts might alleviate a lot of the burden consumers (especially young adults and anyone unfortunate enough to have been/be jobless over the last couple of years) have been feeling. A big chunk of the inflation consumers were seeing on goods in 2024 was just companies making opportunistic price increases, as evidenced by the heavily advertised price drops afterwards.
Additionally there is the statistic that nearly 50% of all retail spending in the United States is made by the top 10% of earners which is a heck of a dangerous tightrope for the economy. I do think that's the other shoe waiting to drop right this second. If the wealthier Americans get spooked and start to pull back their spending this economy is going to tumble
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The solution is surprisingly simple:
"Sorry, I can't use your online services. My electronics died. Oh well." 🤷♂️
"No worries! We just launched Chat-Phone: a cellphone totally connected to ChatGPT. It has almost no capability by itself: poor CPU, min RAM, min/no storage, etc. But it is always connected to ChatGPT!
BTW: because of RAM shortage, we are the only smartphone maker in the world now!"
The phone is 50$, but you need the premium subscription for it to work…
eli5 why doesn't someone produce ram and refuse to sell to AI companies and make a bloody fortune?
Because the AI companies will just offer to buy at a higher price.
If you refuse to sell to AI companies you will make a small fortune yes. If you sell to the highest bidder you’ll make a larger fortune.
AI investment isn't rational like consumer spending. Consumers will only spend what is reasonable for their needs.
The AI bubble allows companies to purchase inventory at higher prices than consumers will ever pay. The suppliers are making record profits supplying them. Unless China increases supply beyond the current memory cartel all we can do is wait for the inevitable market collapse.
Honestly the funniest thing would be Chinese RAM being cheaper even with tariffs and then eating Micron’s lunch
Samsung
SK Hynix
Micron
That's why.
Developing DRAM manufacturing capability is insanely difficult and hugely expensive. Almost all the worlds DRAM comes from one of these three names and they're already making their fortune selling to AI companies. They don't care about how many penny's people like you or me can scrape together.
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This is for one purpose if it's true: To force consumers to rent everything, including their computer, so they can be surveilled.
Don't use GeForce NOW, even if there's a Linux client in the works, because it's surveilled too.
Surveillance isn't the reason, it's a larger and more consistent profit margin.
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Fortunately I'm currently I'm happy with what I have. I think I'll oulast this.
I thought the same until one ram stick died this week, it's apparently now $1200 for a replacement
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Penis! I picked a fine time to finally want to upgrade my Win 7 laptop from 2011.
I wouldn't be surprised to see some foundries retooling to produce DRAM in less than five years.
I'm betting on a $700/$800 Steam Deck 2 when that launches and that being a solid deal. PS6 and it's rumored 36GB of memory, don't hold your breath for a release
Thank god I never sold my old desktops.
I have a i5-3470 with 16gb, i7-8700 with 16 gb, a steamdeck, and recently bought an m4 air.
I’m only gaming on the steamdeck, and those other computers are used for home server stuff.
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