And also because Korean companies apparently fear US retribution if they start producing DDR4. I don't feel like "OpenAI bought half the supply" tells the entire story when the companies that used to produce DDR4 with the left over machines no longer dare to do so. Probably the prices wouldn't spike as they're doing right now if the ones who used to produce the older RAM generations actually continued doing so.
What do you mean by this? From everything I can find points towards other companies winding down DDR4 production because of China's cheaper DDR4 production lines.
> Budget brands normally buy older DRAM fabrication equipment from mega-producers like Samsung when Samsung upgrades their DRAM lines to the latest and greatest equipment. This allows the DRAM market to expand more than it would otherwise because it makes any upgrading of the fanciest production lines to still be additive change to the market. However, Korean memory firms have been terrified that reselling old equipment to China-adjacent OEMs might trigger U.S. retaliation…and so those machines have been sitting idle in warehouses since early spring. - https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram...
Every one seems so focused on that one company supposedly had "fake demand" just to ruin it for competitors, while the supply also seemingly is being suppressed, and no one seems to be talking about that. To me that seems like a much bigger deal, because then the market can't even restore the supply...
