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If OpenAI were actually using the RAM that’s one thing - but stockpiling raw wafers in warehouses is egregious.
by JSR_FDED 11mo ago
If OpenAI were actually using the RAM that’s one thing - but stockpiling raw wafers in warehouses is egregious.
- ares623 11mo agoMaybe they’ll build nice little forts with the wafers
- arjie 11mo agoGuys, these are silicon wafers not bars of steel. You can't just stockpile 40% of annual capacity in a warehouse long-term. I would be incredibly surprised to find that any such large scale storage facility exists. Any storage of undiced wafers is temporary while the manufacturing pipeline proceeds. You've seen the pictures of clean rooms and stuff. There's no way you spend all that effort to make the wafer and then just stick it in a warehouse. Who even is going to make such a large cleanroom facility? And for what exactly? It doesn't even pass the basic sniff test. Much more likely this is just a detail of the contract so that OpenAI can guarantee allocation. I would be surprised if the actual wafers entered OpenAI hands before being fully packaged.
- JSR_FDED 11mo agoReally, you don’t think there is enough storage room in the world? It would require half of one distribution center of a major retailer.
- misswaterfairy 11mo ago> It would require half of one distribution center of a major retailer. That also meets the specifications of a clean room, and is actively maintained as one? If OpenAI bought 40% of the annual capacity of finished memory, with the goal of using it in their server farms ASAP, that's one thing. But unfinished wafers that still need to be protected to finish the manufacturing process, that OpenAI itself does not have any capability to do? That to me looks like a preemptive strike against competitors, which also affects any other industry that requires RAM, in an attempt to develop a monopolistic position. I can't see how this isn't a massive national security issue for any country that needs devices requiring RAM for new systems and maintenance of existing ones (pretty much all of them...) to manage critical infrastructure, national defence, public and social services, and so on.
- JSR_FDED 11mo agoYou do not need clean room specifications for storing wafers.
- machomaster 11mo agoWhy would you need a clean room if it is only for storage? Pack the wafer in a clean room and store the packages in an ordinary storage.
- butvacuum 11mo agoCorrect. It's rather routine for wafers manufactured for "last call" orders on ASICs exiting production to be stored as wafers due to not knowing how they need to be Packaged.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- toss1 11mo agoYup. Not exactly a move "for the good of the world". Also consider: Warehouses of small, high-value items that are fungible and untraceable. That will create multiple huge targets for a big heist. And they'd best have good eyes on their security people too. Sounds like something big enough for organized crime to target.