What is your estimate for when memory prices will decrease?

I agree that we've seen similar fluctuations in the past and the price of compute trends down in the long-term. This could be a bubble, which it likely is, in which case prices should return to baseline eventually. The political climate is extremely challenging at this time though so things could take longer to stabilize. Do you think we're in this ride for months or years?

I can’t be more clear: specificity around predicting the future is close to impossible. There are 9 figure bets on both sides of the RAM issue, and strategic national concerns. I say that prices will go down at some point in the future for reasons highlighted already, but I have no clue when. Keep in mind what I myself have said about human ability to predict the future. You would be a fool to believe anyone’s specific estimates.

Maybe the AI money train stops after Christmas. The entire economy is fucked, but RAM is cheap.

Maybe we unlock AGI and the price sky rockets further before factories can get built.

There are just too many variables.

The real test is if someone had seen this coming, they would have made massive absurd investment returns just by buying up stock and storing it for a few months. Anyone who didn’t take advantage of that opportunity has proved that they had no real confidence in their ability to predict the future price of RAM. RAM inventory might have been one of the highest return investments possible this year. Where are all the RAM whales in Lambos who saw this coming?

As a corollary: we can say that unless you have some skin in the game and have invested a significant amount of your wealth in RAM chips, then you don’t know which way the price is going or when.

Extending that even further: people complaining about RAM prices being so high, and moaning that they bought less RAM because of it are actually signaling through action that they think that prices will go down or have leveled off. Anyone who believes that sticks of DDR5 RAM will continue the trend should be cleaning out Amazon, Best Buy and Newegg since the price will never be lower than today.

The distinct lack of serious people saying “I told ya so” with receipts, combined with the lack of people hoarding RAM to sell later is a good indirect signal that no one knows what is happening in the near term.