Mastodawn

Iran war cuts off helium from Qatar, and shortages will start to bite in a few weeks, threatening chip supply chains that fuel the AI boom

https://lemmy.zip/post/61171244

Iran war cuts off helium from Qatar, and shortages will start to bite in a few weeks, threatening chip supply chains that fuel the AI boom - Lemmy.zip

> Qatar supplies a third of the world’s helium, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but the nation had to halt production shortly after the war erupted three weeks ago. Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://fortune.com/2026/03/21/iran-war-helium-shortage-qatar-chip-supply-chains-ai-boom/ [https://archive.is/newest/https://fortune.com/2026/03/21/iran-war-helium-shortage-qatar-chip-supply-chains-ai-boom/] — Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

ScoffingLizard Mar 22

When these AI companies eat shit, we can buy their stuff cheap. But maybe they’ll still be valuable with the shortage. Sigh.

brucethemoose Mar 22

No way. Nvidia will buy them back and throw them away so they don’t flood their market, like they did for crypto booms.

AMD, too.

MalReynolds Mar 22

Or they get destroyed for tax purposes. So much waste.

ScoffingLizard Mar 24

Dumpster diving anyone? We should go work at one when they go under and go by our cars on way to dumpster.

Vex_Detrause Mar 22

Let’s say we get access to those. What can a regular person do with them? Can we use it as a daily driver computer? Or are we talking about GPUs on the cheap?

youcantreadthis Mar 22

Im told some of the ram is salvageable.

Siegfried Mar 22

As i understand, its not the same ram we christians use

youcantreadthis Mar 22

I thought some of it was like laptop ram. Damn.

brucethemoose Mar 22

For the H100 and up? They’re headless, basically compute only, as they don’t have enough ROPs to game.

I think the A100 technically can game, in the same way you’d use a laptop GPU not hooked up to the display. They’re kinda like giant RTX 3090/ though, so YMMV.

They’re great at GPU compute apps though, same as any regular Nvidia card would be.

And hard drives! They might be SAS or some stuff though, cards are a bit expensive for SAS drives, ask le and my cheap 3TB drive how we know…

Carl [he/him]Mar 22

I’ve read that ai chips can’t be used for anything but ai, but maybe that ram will hit the market and be useful for something.

Ildsaye [they/them]Mar 22

There will be a need for mass desoldering shops to transfer the ram ICs off of the datacenter boards and onto consumer ram wafers

ScoffingLizard Mar 24

They literally have boards with soldered RAM? Onto consumer RAM wafers? You mean like gold bonding or something? Like the whole wafer is used or are the RAM ICs tiny? I guess I never thought about it.

Ildsaye [they/them]Mar 24

Optimal ram speed is obtained by having the ram ICs soldered directly on the mainboard, as close to the (also soldered) cpu as possible, at the cost of easy upgradability - an easy choice for those who only think of the next quarter.

So, I mean the ram ICs can have the solder joints attaching them to datacenter boards melted, and the ICs can be resoldered to the standard ram sticks consumers use in their PCs and laptops. This can be done with home equipment, but not efficiently.

IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet Mar 22

Can we make our own “Project 2025”?

IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet Mar 22

💃💃💃

stephen01king Mar 22

Oh no! Anyway…

Danarchy Mar 22

Scapegoat located

lol this shit is getting funnier by the day.

GenderIsOpSec [she/her, kit/kit's]Mar 22

Iran is kicking off the butlerian jihad and I’m supposed to be mad at them?

tiny_hedgehog Mar 22

Finally… some good news.

ComradeSharkfucker Mar 22

Honestly didn’t know Qatar was a chip producer. Wack

testaccount372920 Mar 22

I don’t think they are, at least not a major one. Helium is important in chip production, Qatar probably captures some from their oil/gas fields and exports it.

ComradeSharkfucker Mar 22

Ohhhhh, I didn’t read “supply chains” my fault I am eepy

youcantreadthis Mar 22

Go back to fucking sharks.

altphoto Mar 22

Hold on to your phones like they were the very last ones ever made. No helium = no computing at all.

Hard drives use helium. Aluminum/tig and other Welding uses helium, all chip making processes use helium, laser cutters use helium, fusion energy LOL, uses helium like a total bitch. Some chemistry uses helium.

We are soooo fucked.

altphoto Mar 22

Party balloons… Some use hydrogen and methane… Right?

altphoto Mar 22

And then we have dumb uses for helium:

altphoto Mar 22

altphoto Mar 22

Helium-icon microscopes, an alternative to scanning electron microscopes.

Leak detection is needed to check Air Conditioners…let that sink in!!!

fallaciousBasis Mar 22

#Mycabbages!