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NAND contract prices are up 600% and DRAM up ~400% since September 2025

Is the AI Boom the worst thing to have ever happened in tech?

  • Yes

    Votes: 106 79.7%

  • No

    Votes: 18 13.5%

  • I don't know, or don't care

    Votes: 9 6.8%
  • Total voters
    133
winjer

winjer

Gold Member
NAND contract prices surge over 600% since September 2025, DRAM up ~400%

According to Bloomberg, contract prices for NAND chips have shot up more than 600% since September 2025, and prices for DRAM contracts are up nearly 400%.
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Michael Brown, a senior research strategist at Pepperstone Group Ltd., said it is becoming increasingly obvious that the crunch is not only worse than feared but is becoming more prolonged, too. Brown added that some sources close to the issue now believe it could stretch to 2030 or perhaps beyond.
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The impact is all around us, and is extreme for all parties involved. Memory makers, investors, and employees are singing all the way to the bank thanks to record demand pushing profits to new heights. Some companies, including Samsung and SK Hynix, are sharing the profits directly with employees via hefty bonuses.
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Frustrated Anger Management GIF
 
But the amout of free time to play games we'll have once we get laid off due to AI?

Idk why people only mention the negative stuff about this
 
I don't see it continuing that much more. Ai companies would need to start making money a lot for it to keep going.
 
All that said, I can confidently say the PS6 will launch in 2027 being heavily subsidized by Sony. Trust me, guys, I would never lie.
 
I wonder when the time will finally come that the venture capital providers will finally want to see money? At the moment, all the AI providers are burning an enormous amount of money, and it doesn't look like it will become profitable in the near future. There are already enough companies whose costs for API calls have exploded so much that they have resorted to hiring normal software developers again, as these are sometimes cheaper. Truly exciting times lie ahead of us.
 
Metnut said:
AI isn't a bubble and it's only getting started. The sooner people accept reality the better it'll be for their mental health.
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Especially with advancement in robotics in military and even for future consumer electronics, factories, entertainment industry, etc. The movies Blade runner and AI are about to become true. But hopefully its moraly right and ethical.
 
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Metnut said:
AI isn't a bubble and it's only getting started. The sooner people accept reality the better it'll be for their mental health.
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AI is going nowhere for sure and yes people need to realise that but it's definitely a bubble. Hardly any money is being made. Companies aren't going to keep pouring billions into it if they don't see returns.
 
I wasn't selling any said:
I wonder when the time will finally come that the venture capital providers will finally want to see money? At the moment, all the AI providers are burning an enormous amount of money, and it doesn't look like it will become profitable in the near future. There are already enough companies whose costs for API calls have exploded so much that they have resorted to hiring normal software developers again, as these are sometimes cheaper. Truly exciting times lie ahead of us.
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I have a feeling the need for an ROI sooner than later will be the pin that pops the bubble. It just seems these massive tech companies are just throwing each other money to keep the bubble afloat, but eventually there will need to be tangible returns for investors. And once things all comes crashing down, who's gonna be holding the bag for all these data centers and infrastructure built for them? Yep, it's the taxpayers that will foot the bill.

And I'm not saying AI isn't an impressive technology. It is, and will get even more impressive. It's just the WAY we're building it out is insanely short sighted, and frankly irresponsible. All just so these tech CEOs can cream themselves over the thought of laying off massive amounts of their workforce so they can be replaced by AI.

And then all those unemployed workers are supposed to buy their shit with... a McDonald's salary?
 
Smiggs said:
I have a feeling the need for an ROI sooner than later will be the pin that pops the bubble. It just seems these massive tech companies are just throwing each other money to keep the bubble afloat, but eventually there will need to be tangible returns for investors. And once things all comes crashing down, who's gonna be holding the bag for all these data centers and infrastructure built for them? Yep, it's the taxpayers that will foot the bill.
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Article:
The concerns have fueled broader market debate over whether the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in artificial intelligence can generate adequate returns in the near term. SoftBank has taken on substantial debt to finance its investments in OpenAI, as Masayoshi Son seeks to position himself as a key figure in the global AI boom.

Markets remain divided in their assessment. SoftBank shares have risen 39% this year, outperforming the 12.3% gain in Japan's Topix index.
However, the cost of insuring against potential default on SoftBank's debt has also risen, with credit default swaps widening by around 61 basis points in 2026.

The company had previously committed to invest an additional USD 30 billion in OpenAI after already investing a larger amount beforehand. SoftBank also secured a USD 40 billion loan in March, the largest dollar-denominated loan ever raised, with part of the proceeds intended to fund the follow-on investment. In the same month, S&P Global Ratings revised SoftBank's credit outlook to negative from stable, citing concerns that the OpenAI investment could affect the company's liquidity and the credit quality of its assets. (DK/KR/ZH)


This is how that will go down. Governments aren't going to rescue private investors, but if banks that invested heavily in AI companies lose all that money and are on the verge of collapsing, it indeed will be tax payers who'll have to finance their rescue.
 
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I mean, the societal damage done by social media is way worse in my opinion, but it's hard to quantify with numbers. The giant waste of resources on AI we are seeing is pretty terrible though.
 
When the bubble pops I hope all the propaganda riddled AI articles like this one go poof too.
 
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It will be hilarious when the prices start falling down the cliff and Micron realizes

Metnut said:
AI isn't a bubble and it's only getting started. The sooner people accept reality the better it'll be for their mental health.
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You mean, it started in 2012?

It's a crazy piece of tech but it's mostly hype and burning money. Whole thing is like the Space Race, people thought we would be on Pluto fucking alien chicks by now, but we are still stuck on Earth and a Mars colony is still a pipedream.
 
I just want to know how much longer these crazy prices are going to go on for. It feels like it's been so long since stuff was reasonably priced. RTX 5090's going for $3900 pre tax is crazy. And RTX 5080's are going for basically 5090 MSRP. Not to mention RAM and storage being multiple times more expensive than they used to be.
 
Celcius said:
I just want to know how much longer these crazy prices are going to go on for. It feels like it's been so long since stuff was reasonably priced. RTX 5090's going for $3900 pre tax is crazy. And RTX 5080's are going for basically 5090 MSRP. Not to mention RAM and storage being multiple times more expensive than they used to be.
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Probably an year or two. One day investors will ask for return of investment, that's probably the bubble pops, but the economic consequences will be severe. Until then you have to be patient, it will happen.
 
winjer said:
NAND contract prices surge over 600% since September 2025, DRAM up ~400%



ntnw5SEUdVcT1tVJ.png





Frustrated Anger Management GIF
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It's not a memory supercycle. It's a memory price correction. The value of memory has increased and so has the cartel's market power.

In the past they lost money when memory was cheap, and made it back when memory was expensive. On net they made no money off consumer and a bit off datacenter. And their workers made mostly bad USD wages.

Now everyone working at Samsung or SKHynixmemory is going to be making a million dollar bonus. They will never sell memory below substantial operating profits.
 
Draugoth said:
Probably an year or two. One day investors will ask for return of investment, that's probably the bubble pops, but the economic consequences will be severe. Until then you have to be patient, it will happen.
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Edit: Sorry for accidental double post!

If a bubble pops it won't help with RAM. Like Amazon was a winner of the .com bubble. Many companies closed but Amazon was left. The total number of people visiting amazon rose tremendously when they won, eventually and relatively quickly outstripping the original demand.

Looking at the .com bubble, when it popped .coms were consolidated not removed.

Losers and startups would collapse. Winners would expand. The underlying tech doesn't go anywhere.

It's on an inevitable path to becoming infrastructure and nothing financial will stop that. Think electrical lines, telephone lines, gas lines, sewer, Internet, and AI.

What would happen is the stock market would crash, our retirement savings would take a hit and everybody working at the startups would be fired and looking for jobs with the winners. That's not a good thing to hope for but you do you. Ram usage won't be affected since the total AI infrastructure will need to expand no matter what investment provides for. Just like electrical lines.

Instead your ram future will be saved by tech like google's turboquant. It ramps up efficiency in LLM tremendously and effectively reduces the ram needed for AI.
 
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It's ok winjer winjer

Sony found a way to secure prices until the end of the year, as reported in February. :pie_smirking:



Tiago Rodrigues

Thread 'Sony CFO says they are already in a position to secure the minimum quantity of memory to manage until the end of this year's holiday sales period'



Seems like Sony has managed a way to somehow counteract any possible price increase until the end of this year, or at least minimize that. This is great news and if they somehow pull that off...whoever is in charge with this stuff at Sony deserves a raise.
If others somehow raise their hardware prices and Sony manages to keep their prices...that, plus Wolverine in September and GTAVI in November...that would be quite the feat.

Imagine a GTAVI + PS5 for 350 bucks.
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adamsapple said:
It's ok winjer winjer

Sony found a way to secure prices until the end of the year, as reported in February. :pie_smirking:



Tiago Rodrigues

Thread 'Sony CFO says they are already in a position to secure the minimum quantity of memory to manage until the end of this year's holiday sales period'



Seems like Sony has managed a way to somehow counteract any possible price increase until the end of this year, or at least minimize that. This is great news and if they somehow pull that off...whoever is in charge with this stuff at Sony deserves a raise.
If others somehow raise their hardware prices and Sony manages to keep their prices...that, plus Wolverine in September and GTAVI in November...that would be quite the feat.

Imagine a GTAVI + PS5 for 350 bucks.
  • Like
  • LOL
  • Fire
  • Thoughtful
  • Surprised
  • Praise the Sun
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Why are you bring this up now? This has been discussed in severalk threads and why it's the reason for the PS5 and Pro price increases.
 
winjer said:
Why are you bring this up now? This has been discussed in severalk threads and why it's the reason for the PS5 and Pro price increases.
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I'm being cheeky, that 'news' piece didn't hold true even two months.

Turns out no one was immune to price hikes despite claims of securing a year's worth of memory chips.
 
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adamsapple said:
I'm being cheeky, that 'news' piece didn't hold true even two months.

Turns out no one was immune to price hikes despite claims of securing a year's worth of memory chips.
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But that news was true. At that time dram prices were already sky high. And Sony was just saying they were close to buying the bare minimum dram for the year.
Somehow, some people here thought it meant Sony had already bought a ton of memory at a discount. Which is complete nonsense as we know.
 
I think the crypto boom was worse, it fooled some to try to put NFTs in games, terrible idea. Memory isn't cheap, but it's still much cheaper than GPUs and you can actually use DDR4 if you are pressing for the money.

There are some benefits from AI tools, some workflows are arguable better. Crypto boom didn't have any positives.
 
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I hate to say it, but the benefits I gain from simple browser AI integration, such as Gemini or Copilot, have grown to significant levels. In that regard, no, it's not the worst thing that happened in tech.
 
Brucey said:
Chances of 2027 ps6 release doubtful.
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Who says RAM prices will be better in 2028 and 2029?

Holding back on release when you have everything done (and paid for) is dumb. Unless they can't secure enough memory for any significant number of consoles (I still expect paper launch next year).
 
We could have Valve's Steam Machine, but because of that, no

Updated GPUs, but no

Teasers instead of fears for new consoles, but no

This is bullshit. I hope they fail and personal agents becames the standard
 
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