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genxy • today at 2:33 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

CXMT isn't going to just magically price memory like it is 5 years ago. Maybe 10-20% lower, but not some integer multiple lower.


Replies

crote • today at 3:01 PM

That's today. You have to think about what the industry is going to look like in a decade.

Building a DRAM company from scratch is hard, expensive, and risky. You're burning a fortune to get started, and the result is a commodity product. But the AI bubble allows CXMT to have terrible yields, sell a legacy product, and still make a healthy profit! This is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catch up.

And yes, right now that means selling DRAM for 10% below the crazy AI-inflated prices the incumbents charge. But sooner or later either demand will drop or supply will catch up. CXMT, like many other Chinese companies, is undoubtedly willing to operate at razor-thin margins to increase market share. Either the other manufacturers move down as well, or they'll be made irrelevant by CXMT stealing all their customers.

api • today at 2:54 PM

Oh sure, they'll take profits while they can, but the supply increase will start pulling the market down. It's how price signals work.

Only way to keep prices this high would be a multinational cartel of RAM makers agreeing never to compete on price. One defector kills it. Not likely you could keep a cartel like this given that the players are all on different sides of geopolitical tensions. China's not going to want to help keep Taiwan, Japan, Germany, or the USA in the money.