Regardless of AI demand: as it currently stands, it seems that DDR5 prices will drop substantially in ~24 months as additional wafer capacity comes online between SK Hynix's fabs M15X and Yongin Fab 1, Samsung's fabs Pyeongtaek P4 and P5 Fab 1, and Micron's fabs Boise ID1 and Tongluo (+ whatever CXMT do as well), and HBM production hits HBM packaging bottlenecks (HBM wafer capacity exceeds HBM packaging capacity) which means the wafer capacity will start getting dumped into DDR5 instead (unless the HBM packaging bottleneck is solved in the next 24 months).
A bit of a tangent, but when can we expect storage prices to go down?
2030 is my guess when it will start to be reasonable again. Not be reasonable but start on a path, and barely.
I've heard 2040 (note this is not 2030), 2029, and 2027 for 'back to normal', 'new production online', and 'potentially a lower demand will be seen and still not enough supply', respectively. All hearsay from me reading news headlines.
Global inflation and f&&&ing Dump will impact all this ofc.
I just paid $300 for a 2TB SSD. I wanted 4TB, but couldn't justify the cost since I really don't need that much space at the moment.
Assuming demand does not asymptote as we approach singularity.
Which it to say, if models eventually do useful work, demand for substrate will continue to outpace production. I don’t envy the fabs that have to forecast how much memory the world will desire in 2030
This is a supply constraint and requires no assumption about demand - HBM packaging capacity constrains the amount of wafers that can go towards HBM (regardless of price in the near term), and excess wafer capacity will be dumped into DDR5 and crash DDR5 margins.