In addition to the manufacturing and logistics mess the pandemic has created globally for everyone, the semiconductor shortage is even more of a special case.

In addition to the manufacturing and logistics mess the pandemic has created globally for everyone, the semiconductor shortage is even more of a special case. Just looking at graphics cards, we're in a perfect storm from a demand standpoint: 1) The pandemic resulted in a significant increase in demand by businesses buying laptops/PCs for employees so they could work from home. Lots of GPUs there and they are still buying. 2) Lots of people as individuals buying gaming PCs and consoles since they were spending much more time at home and wanted something to do. They too are still buying in record numbers. 3) With AI being a hot field right now, lots of GPUs being purchased for deep learning by researchers and businesses. Maybe this is a permanent increase in demand, maybe not... time will tell. 4) With cryptocurrencies being white hot right now, lots of GPUs being purchased for mining. So you might say 'well why not just build more fabs/factories/whatever and they can all make lots of money?' Well sure, for now. Fabs cost billions of dollars and take a couple of years to come online. The companies that have to invest in them likely spent much of 2020 and 2021 doing everything they could to increase production in the short term while asking themselves 'how much of this demand is long term?' as all of the items listed above are relatively recent changes, rather than things proven to be structural changes. It sounds like by mid- to late-2021 companies like TSMC decided to take the plunge after securing some up front payments and volume commitments from major customers. In addition to concerns by companies like AMD and nVidia about how long term items 1 and 2 are, they know for a fact that 4 isn't likely to be sustainable given that there was a major crypto crash in the last 5 years and likely to be another one soon. When this happens, this will not only decrease demand as crypto miners stop ordering, but it will likely also increase supply as miners dump their GPUs on the used market (Ebay etc.) to cut their losses. If you follow the GPU news, you'll notice that AMD and nVidia are being very strategic in releasing new mining-specific GPUs. This is partially to offer products that specifically target the needs of miners, but I suspect more to minimize how much of this product can be dumped on the used market hurting GPU demand from consumers down the road. In addition to all this going on specific to their industry, they're dealing with all of the other manufacturing and logistical issues everyone else is. So they're also having to figure out how to get that PITA power/memory/whatever controller that they need manufactured in quantity and in time to build their own products and so on. So these companies are responding: they probably did as much as it financially made sense for them to in the short term while also adjusting their longer term plans. I'm expecting them to come online with significant new supply (for the new products released in 2022) just in time to see it dry up soon after (at least in the short term) since that's typically how these things go.