real_aurgathor That is irrelevant even if it’s true because the current price spike is essentially caused by a big demand from data centers, possibly helped by the companies raising price beyond reasonable.
That’s probably the most substantial cause but there is a mix of other factors like tariffs, fab investments, retaliatory export controls, increased pricing on rare materials, stockpiling, etc..
I did a little digging after Ozark’s post above and it turns out that some manufacturers were increasing prices to re-shore manufacturing capacities domestically due to the increased cost of building in certain locations. Further to that, certain countries are jacking up prices on rare minerals used for certain types of chips. And on top of it, there’s a messy tapestry of tariffs between a list of countries on certain technologies intertwined with export controls and retaliation.
The reshoring of manufacturing along with Elon getting into the chipmaking business will eventually have a positive impact on the availability of products in the future but it’s a bit of a waiting game.
2025 - 2026, First major reshored fabs actually producing chips (TSMC Arizona pushing out Nvidia Blackwell chips, Samsung’s Texas plant starting prototype production)
2027 - 2028, Micron and Samsung increasing fab capacity and ramping up production on a global scale.
2029 - 2032, Multiple US fabs reach scale (Arizona, Texas, Idaho, NY, etc.).
I truly believe we’ll start seeing the real easement of pricing when all the US fabs start churning out a serious number of chips in the early 2030s. Micron issued a press release that the first wafers from their new expansion will start in mid-2027… but they also said it will take several quarters following that production to have an impact on the market.
