alt Hacker NewsIt takes about 3-4 years to build a fab and ten-billion dollars.
https://download.intel.com/newsroom/2022/manufacturing/fab-f...
And even if someone were able to magically build one in half the time, that would certainly drive up the cost quite dramatically, and would still be two-ish years from production.
The history of the memory industry is jam-packed with booms and busts, and companies that over-provisioned capacity during the boom times, only to have the bust happen as the fab is coming on line, are the ones that fail.
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"William de Gale, portfolio manager at BlueBox Asset Management, told CNBC’s Europe Early Edition on Wednesday that the industry tends to have “enormous ups and downs”.
“In the long run it’s a pretty dreadful industry,” he said.
“I suspect that’s still the case every time people make an argument that the memory cycle is gone, and it’s now a long-term value-creating industry – just before it all goes horribly wrong.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/25/memory-stocks-cyclical-boom-...
$10 billion dollars, 3 to 4 years, that’s less time to build a new modem chip that works. that’s less time to build a new M series processor that works. Google, Microsoft, and Meta We’ll spend close to $500 billion in 2026, just on their AI dreams, I would say having a supply of memory chips is vital towards your business if you’re someone like Apple or AMD or Nvidia, these days these days, if you want to design the devices you need to design, so who’s going to take it in house?