link (t)wink 
Amber 
(aka kemona_halftau)
@link why is ram so expensive
@kemona_halftau either big tech AI or RAM manufacturers setting the whatever market conditions they want
Julia :v_bi::therian:@link @kemona_halftau it's ai- they're buying up the dim chips for use in GPUs to prevent competitors from starting up datacenters
Natanox 🇺🇦🇵🇸@julia @link @kemona_halftau More detailed: OpenAI bought 40% of the global supply for the next 12 months of *all* DRAM and even unfinished wafers and some older production machines. They simply want to prevent other AI companies from overtaking them at all cost, as there are zero news of them wanting to produce stuff.
This caused panic-orders of DRAM by every company, sorta like toilet paper in 2020.
Additionally spicy: DRAM manufacturers do not want to increase production for some reason.
Atomic Fox@Natanox @julia @link @kemona_halftau
RAM manufacturers know that it takes months to years to substantially increase production, and if they do it based on the current price spike, they'll be bankrupted when the new lines start producing, because the price spike will have subsided by then (possibly because OpenAI will have itself gone bankrupt).
There was a huge debacle in the 1980s which the industry hasn't completely forgotten.
