I saw on Twitter that TSMC has made 1B worth of chips for Apple that they cannot package because of missing memory.
(PS: It is time to let ASML sell to CXMT.)
(PS: It is time to let ASML sell to CXMT.)
Other manufactures like Micron do have aggressive expansion plans, but fabs take a long time to build and bring online - multiple years.
https://www.guru3d.com/story/cxmt-dram-capacity-reportedly-s...
Traded as CUSU for end-users: https://en.twsc.com.cn/enCUSU/index.html
Why? High demand and low supply is very good for shareholders and make indexes go up, their goal is not to meet demand, they want exponential qurartly revunes
To me it seems like they’re just riding the AI hype out, expecting a crash after, and not willing to risk a lot of capital on someone else’s bubble.
If memory is now upstream of so many companies, then maybe a higher regulatory involvement would be appropriate (like power companies).
Specifically, and it could fix all of this, capping the max % of their supply they're allowed to sell into the AI space.
The arguments for infrastructure being managed more tightly by the government is because it's a natural monopoly that everything depends on. Memory isn't a natural monopoly, if we found ourselves in a spot where we all depend on 3 companies then that's not a law of nature, we need more companies.
Memory absolutely fits both these criteria.
As for the net public good weighing, at the end of the day the question would be if it would be more economically efficient to mass produce memory with a managed price structure (i.e. US agrees to buy X amount at $Y regularly).
Which turns into whether having an anchor buyer allows the producer to economically create (and continually run) more production capacity than they would otherwise.
It feels like for semiconductors, the planet as a whole would benefit from maximizing production to floor cost.
Granted, AI infra mania current times is an anomaly, as was internet build-out.
I put "food" and "airplane frames" in the "worth it for state intervention" category personally. Memory is obviously not food, the question is whether it is airplane frames at this point in time. Maybe? I'd give it a solid 55/45 maybe. But we shouldn't sponsor korean/taiwanese companies, so what's the plan for an American memory company?
The big three are also expanding their capacity. IMO, it seems to make more sense to sell equipments to those who could make better, efficient use of them. ASML has a backlog of €38.8 billion and is fully booked for 2027.
Couldn’t intel repurpose some of its fabs (maybe the old ones?) to produce memory?
I’m no expert but… seems like an easy win?