The big companies are insulated because they've locked in multi-year supply contracts with ram manufacturers - Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon (All on 3-5 yr contracts). OAI's deal with Samsung & SK Hynix is also colossal - locking up roughly 900,000 DRAM wafers per month, roughly 40% of world output (Stargate project).
Apple got caught out because it had a shorter contract that ended in the beginning of Q3, and they've tried to source their RAM from Chinese CXMT who declined because all capacity was already locked in contracts. They've gone with a lesser known company Kioxia.
Overall the consumer segment is completely neglected, companies don't care about end users in the current market conditions.
> and they've tried to source their RAM from Chinese CXMT who declined because all capacity was already locked in contracts.
The US Government also wouldn't let Apple use Chinese RAM anyways, even for product that was just going to be used in China. China does have capacity issues though, and focusing on local brands first is probably the right call. Hopefully they can ramp even if they can't get the fancy lithography machines from the Netherlands.
> OAI's deal with Samsung & SK Hynix is also colossal - locking up roughly 900,000 DRAM wafers per month, roughly 40% of world output (Stargate project).
I wonder if they'll, at some point, have enough RAM? Or is this is the new normal? Will models keep scaling with the amount of ram chips openai and anthropic own?
Even with efficiency breakthroughs, it would just afford packing more agents per unit of memory. Scaling compute and data keeps paying off, leading to smarter models, and smarter models have more demand even at higher prices because they can accomplish more work at higher quality. Sovereign AI hasn’t even really taken off yet to anywhere near the level it could. That’s going to dramatically increase the number of massive-scale users of AI agents. So no, IMHO they will “never” have “enough.”
On the bright side, this will further accelerate the retro computing scene as people throw their hands up at the thought of building something shiny and new
The big companies are insulated because they've locked in multi-year supply contracts with ram manufacturers - Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon (All on 3-5 yr contracts). OAI's deal with Samsung & SK Hynix is also colossal - locking up roughly 900,000 DRAM wafers per month, roughly 40% of world output (Stargate project).
Apple got caught out because it had a shorter contract that ended in the beginning of Q3, and they've tried to source their RAM from Chinese CXMT who declined because all capacity was already locked in contracts. They've gone with a lesser known company Kioxia.
Overall the consumer segment is completely neglected, companies don't care about end users in the current market conditions.
> They've gone with a lesser known company Kioxia.
Formerly known as Toshiba's memory division. They spun off the business as Kioxia in 2017.
> and they've tried to source their RAM from Chinese CXMT who declined because all capacity was already locked in contracts.
The US Government also wouldn't let Apple use Chinese RAM anyways, even for product that was just going to be used in China. China does have capacity issues though, and focusing on local brands first is probably the right call. Hopefully they can ramp even if they can't get the fancy lithography machines from the Netherlands.
> OAI's deal with Samsung & SK Hynix is also colossal - locking up roughly 900,000 DRAM wafers per month, roughly 40% of world output (Stargate project).
I wonder if they'll, at some point, have enough RAM? Or is this is the new normal? Will models keep scaling with the amount of ram chips openai and anthropic own?
Even with efficiency breakthroughs, it would just afford packing more agents per unit of memory. Scaling compute and data keeps paying off, leading to smarter models, and smarter models have more demand even at higher prices because they can accomplish more work at higher quality. Sovereign AI hasn’t even really taken off yet to anywhere near the level it could. That’s going to dramatically increase the number of massive-scale users of AI agents. So no, IMHO they will “never” have “enough.”
On the bright side, this will further accelerate the retro computing scene as people throw their hands up at the thought of building something shiny and new
Its a good thing the data centers in the Gulf states didnt get bombed.