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HerbManic 16 hours ago [-]
A moments silence for Memory stick... Yeah that should do it.
tomalaci 17 hours ago [-]
I feel like all these hardware shortages will supercharge 2nd hand electronics and their refurbishing from repair specialists.
HerbManic 16 hours ago [-]
For many years I had been advocating for Linux distros to optimize for lower spec machines as their life times got extended. Best case, you head off potential hardware end of life, worst case you allow newer hardware to run more effciebtly. The latest shortage I didnt see coming, but it would have helped out regardless. Keeping old hardware going is vital nowadays, need to end the mind set of disposable goods.
iszomer 12 hours ago [-]
Might even bring back some value to those _westerners_ who are still hooked into the nostalgic scene -- have you made a trip to Akihabara district lately?
Havoc 12 hours ago [-]
2nd hand is up massively already. Built a ssd nas with eBay parts in mid 2025 and everything is up 100ish percent
20after4 8 hours ago [-]
Only 100%? I'm seeing SSDs going for about 400% what I paid in 2024.
noobermin 16 hours ago [-]
Didn't OpenAI cancel a bunch of memory orders? Seems premature to announce this as there soon will be a glut of memory in the market.
zvqcMMV6Zcr 13 hours ago [-]
I think that is misinformation caused by circular logic. DDR prices stopped risking, simply because supply reached equilibrium vs demand and willingness of customers to overpay. The Micron stock price also had minor correction.
Suddenly internet is full of articles how it is all caused by TurboQuant release or OpenAI giving up on its huge wafer orders.
Looks very similar like attempts to explain random crypto price changes with any (un)related news.
torginus 13 hours ago [-]
Am I wrong that essentially what OpenAI tried to do is to short squeeze the memory market?
What happens if they decide to dump all the stock they don't actually need anymore?
Will half the memory industry run into the ground because of the oversupply means their current production is unsellable?
pjc50 13 hours ago [-]
The term I would use is "corner", as in "silver" and "onions". But there's a couple of distinctions:
- supposedly buying for their own use, rather than reselling
- bought as forward, rather than spot: much of what they've ""bought"" is a commitment to buy memory that has not yet been manufactured
> Will half the memory industry run into the ground because of the oversupply means their current production is unsellable?
They've seen that coming, this is why there isn't a massive expansion to meet the demand rise and instead they're letting "demand destruction" happen. A decision vindicated by the war, as well.
torginus 12 hours ago [-]
> supposedly buying for their own use, rather than reselling?
Do we know what they're using it for? I mean not reselling would imply the chips go on some OpenAI specific proprietary hardware directly, rather than it being sold back to OEMs to buy more GPUs or other off the shelf accelerators.
> They've seen that coming, this is why there isn't a massive expansion to meet the demand rise and instead they're letting "demand destruction" happen. A decision vindicated by the war, as well.
If you're a memory company, this sounds like making the best of a bad situation. not making more stuff despite demand far outstripping supply, just to prepare for the potential oversupply your customer can cause because they can walk back on their massive order.
HWR_14 10 hours ago [-]
I thought they were buying it more to keep it out of the hands of their competitors than any other reason.
dist-epoch 11 hours ago [-]
OpenAI is not the only buyer. If they canceled, Google/Microsoft/Apple will pick it up.
And there is another incoming tidal-wave of compute demand from all the vibe-coded apps that everybody is making now.
This will create a CPU shortage too.
pulse7 15 hours ago [-]
Source?
pjc50 14 hours ago [-]
I've seen this going around on social media but not on reputable news sites.
Are heavily ironic posts still considered non-kosher for HN? It does seem times are changing.
skrebbel 15 hours ago [-]
Only if they're not funny
fpoling 15 hours ago [-]
It is more funny if one watched the original Total Recall.
globular-toast 10 hours ago [-]
This is why "sort by controversial" is such a good feature of Reddit. If you're not offending half the people, is it really worth saying anything at all?
paganel 14 hours ago [-]
They're a good way of verifying that they're not AI-slop, or not pro-AI slop, which I view as the same think, so I think that they should be embraced.
t0rt01se 15 hours ago [-]
The word you seek is 'sarcastic'. The ever so slightly neuro-divergent don't do sarcarsm. Nor do linkedinlunatics.
clarionbell 14 hours ago [-]
Please don't buy into that stereotype. People with aspergers are capable of getting sarcasm. Especially if it's over the top like this.
prerok 17 hours ago [-]
We can remember it for you, wholesale.
ares623 16 hours ago [-]
Who needs terabyte hard drives when all your photos can stored as plaintext prompts instead. Finally, the perfect storage format!
pjc50 13 hours ago [-]
There is actually some work on doing this; after all, an imagegen model is simply a very large number of images that have been compressed together. Given a stable model and a means of inferring a prompt for an image, you can then generate a base image and store compressed deltas on top of it.
(of course the limit case of this is Samsung moon replacement)
shevy-java 15 hours ago [-]
The AI corporations owe us money. I fail to see why
we all have to pay more due to these greedy companies -
they should pay us compensation money for driving up
the prices here. In particular the US government is
helping drive these prices up as well - not just due to
AI situation, but also due to destroying part of the
energy supply lines via its bombing of Iran as well
as stock market manipulation. A mafia is pillaging all
of us here.
pllbnk 11 hours ago [-]
How else will we be able to write these HN comments if data centers are not there to help us? By typing on our keyboards character by character? [1]
Looks very similar like attempts to explain random crypto price changes with any (un)related news.
What happens if they decide to dump all the stock they don't actually need anymore?
Will half the memory industry run into the ground because of the oversupply means their current production is unsellable?
- supposedly buying for their own use, rather than reselling
- bought as forward, rather than spot: much of what they've ""bought"" is a commitment to buy memory that has not yet been manufactured
> Will half the memory industry run into the ground because of the oversupply means their current production is unsellable?
They've seen that coming, this is why there isn't a massive expansion to meet the demand rise and instead they're letting "demand destruction" happen. A decision vindicated by the war, as well.
Do we know what they're using it for? I mean not reselling would imply the chips go on some OpenAI specific proprietary hardware directly, rather than it being sold back to OEMs to buy more GPUs or other off the shelf accelerators.
> They've seen that coming, this is why there isn't a massive expansion to meet the demand rise and instead they're letting "demand destruction" happen. A decision vindicated by the war, as well.
If you're a memory company, this sounds like making the best of a bad situation. not making more stuff despite demand far outstripping supply, just to prepare for the potential oversupply your customer can cause because they can walk back on their massive order.
And there is another incoming tidal-wave of compute demand from all the vibe-coded apps that everybody is making now.
This will create a CPU shortage too.
Coincidentally, the SK Hynix US IPO has been announced: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/sk-hynix-files-co...
(of course the limit case of this is Samsung moon replacement)
[1]: https://x.com/sama/status/2033935276079510011