“AI” truly ruins everything.
On hardware costs, if it produces a large, sustained amount of demand, and if there are fixed costs (e.g. R&D) that can be shared between hardware used for it and other things, it may substantially reduce hardware prices in the long run for other users.
Suppose, to take an example, that there is demand for, oh, completely pulling a number out of the air, 4 times the amount of high bandwidth memory for AI that there is for 3D video cards and video game consoles. That’s on a sustained basis, not just our initial AI buildout. There is going to be some amount of fixed costs that have to be done at Micron and Samsung and the like to figure out how to design the product and optimize production.
That’s going to mean that AI users likely pay something like 80% of the fixed costs for HBM, which may very well lower costs for other users of HBM.
In late 2025 and 2026 there is a huge surge in demand for hardware. There’s a shortage of hardware, and factories don’t get built out overnight. So prices skyrocket, pricing out many users to the point where demand at the new price point matches the available supply. But as production capacity increases, that will also ease.
I do get that it’s frustrating if someone wants to build a system right now.
But scale matters a lot, and this may enable a lot more scale.
The reason I can have a cheap Linux desktop at home isn’t because there are masses of people buying Linux desktops, but because there are huge numbers of businesses out there buying Windows desktops and many of the fixed hardware development costs are shared. If those businesses running Windows desktops suddenly disappeared tomorrow, I probably couldn’t afford my home Linux desktop, because suddenly I’d need to be paying a lot more of the fixed costs.
I get what you’re saying, but weren’t big manufacturers committing to NOT expand production capacities? I can’t remember where I read it, but it felt more like they were just gonna hedge their bets and not build out in the near term.
Not to mention, this all sounds and looks like commitments and not actual orders. It just feels like they’re all playing with imaginary money and when the AI bubble bursts, and all those commitments up and disappear like a fart in the wind, those benefits of scale are also going to disappear and the prices will just stay high.
No, they’re definitely also expanding.
Not all of them, certainly, but there are a few plans for new factories. Samsung, for instance, is rolling out a new chip factory, if you want something to search.
You mean capitalism I think.
Terminator said AI would destroy humanity. We just didn‘t know it would be with hoarding of natural and manufactured resources to fuel an idiocracy. No pitched and desperate war for the survival of humanity, just a necrosis eating us alive for the quarterly report.
Imagine if we put this level of effort into something objectively positive for the human race.
Theoretically it should be. We can stop working most jobs and spend our time enjoying ourselves.
Too bad that won’t happen.
Imagine if they put all that money into developing a decent product that might return some actual revenue.
Nah, let use all these PC components for something wasteful.
Instead they are destroying environments and communities and guzzling water and power.
Enshitification abounds
Oh fuck…
I just need two more 8TB drives so I can complete my NAS, that is all. Don’t blow up now! Please…
):
Looks like somebody’s going to be buying hard drives with Affirm lol
In other news grocery stores are out of tomatoes, because AI.
stupid idiots
You know what’s crazy about this AI bullshit. I’ve been wanting to buy a micro SD card for my tablet but the hard drive shortage has caused the price of micro SD cards to double in the past few months, so I might not be able to anytime soon. The only one that’s reasonably priced is from Silicon Power, which is a brand that I’ve never even heard of before.
Silicon Power
They’ve been around for a long time, they’re decent.
I have one, I bought it directly from them on their website. Its pretty decent for the price. It hasn’t failed in a few years so that’s good.
even flashdrives have gotten more expensive
Idk, I still see 256GB Emtec ones for 10€ in my local supermarket.
Wonderful.
This reminds me of those morons that run out to buy ALL the toilet paper to sell later.
Except it’s the toilet paper manufacturers that are hoarding all their product because there are these billionaire fuck-bags that are promising to produce a massive pile of shit and will pay anything to have ALL the toilet paper.
That a shitty analogy… But a good one.
I’m tempted to just say "good, less WD drives around ". But there aren’t a lot, if any, good manufacturers left. What we actually get is probably more Seagate, which is even worse.
We’re not getting more anything. AI is taking it all up
After the pop there will be plenty of 2nd hand components that were never used or are slightly used.
Unfortunately none of it will be RAM because all the fabs are making HBM, not DRAM.
I think hbm is not consumer tech cause it’s expensive, otherwise it’s just superior. I assume if the market is flooded with the stuff there will be a drive for compatible components
they will all go to the shredder. ain’t got any time to sell to the poors
