If OpenAI were actually using the RAM that’s one thing - but stockpiling raw wafers in warehouses is egregious.
Much more likely this is just a detail of the contract so that OpenAI can guarantee allocation. I would be surprised if the actual wafers entered OpenAI hands before being fully packaged.
It would require half of one distribution center of a major retailer.
That also meets the specifications of a clean room, and is actively maintained as one?
If OpenAI bought 40% of the annual capacity of finished memory, with the goal of using it in their server farms ASAP, that's one thing.
But unfinished wafers that still need to be protected to finish the manufacturing process, that OpenAI itself does not have any capability to do?
That to me looks like a preemptive strike against competitors, which also affects any other industry that requires RAM, in an attempt to develop a monopolistic position.
I can't see how this isn't a massive national security issue for any country that needs devices requiring RAM for new systems and maintenance of existing ones (pretty much all of them...) to manage critical infrastructure, national defence, public and social services, and so on.
Also consider:
Warehouses of small, high-value items that are fungible and untraceable.
That will create multiple huge targets for a big heist. And they'd best have good eyes on their security people too.
Sounds like something big enough for organized crime to target.