69
AI demand triggers massive PCB shortage for PC makers as order books full until 2030 — lead times stretch to 30 months as material costs surge 12x (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 6 hours ago by to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
11 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The AI industry continues to gobble up manufacturing resources that were once dedicated to serving PC, smart device, and gadget makers. We’ve seen huge demand/supply driven price rises in RAM, GPUs, SSDs, and more through 2026. Now that most basic and unglamorous electronics necessity, the PCB, looks set to join them. A news report published by Nikkei Asia quotes several leading PC and PCB industry managers, making it clear we are going to see PCB (and PCB subcomponent) shortages and price rises in the coming months.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 10 points 4 hours ago* (1 child)

It's by design. Altman literally bought the wafers themselves. We need laws to protect against this, and also a serious law with criminal liability for the destruction of it.

Once it comes the time, it will be better for them to destroy the GPUs and ask for more bailout money than to put them on eBay for cheap. The end game is a monopoly, this is just the first step. They can't let prices go back down afterwards either.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 3 hours ago*

    In a normal non-bubble world it would just be considered anti-competitive practices. Also typically it's not possible to do this, as it's like lighting a pile of money on fire and a single company can't afford to buy everything to starve their competition of infrastructure. A private business would vote that moron out, and a public one does the same with shareholder votes.

    The problem was irrational exhuberance and everybody doing it everywhere. It self corrects eventually with the public likely eating the losses... but the hardware itself is marked down, discounted, and liquidated just the same so it'll restore the market for components that way.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent