OpenAI cuts costs triggering a chain reaction: global memory chip prices begin to decline

Golden Finance reported on March 30 that, according to Bian Niu Shi, as concerns about OpenAI’s funding chain and expansion capabilities have intensified, the recent spending cut measures by this tech giant have severely impacted the previously booming memory chip market. It was OpenAI’s explosive growth that triggered a skyrocketing increase in memory prices. As an essential core component for consumer electronics and data centers, suppliers’ production capacity simply cannot meet the massive demand from the AI industry. Data from market research firm TrendForce shows that over the past year, the price of memory modules has skyrocketed by nearly seven times.
But as OpenAI has begun to apply the brakes on its massive data center investments, signs of a slowdown in this price tsunami have finally begun to emerge. For example, in the case of DDR5 memory kits, some products have seen price drops of up to $100. According to reports from industry media, the price of a 32GB capacity kit on Amazon has dramatically fallen from a recent high of $490 to $370. However, as the creator behind ChatGPT, OpenAI has recently halted several extremely costly star projects, leading the market to question whether they can still absorb so many chips. Just last week, to control their ever-expanding operating costs, they directly shut down the highly anticipated AI video generation application Sora. Earlier this month, they also tore up a multi-billion dollar partnership with Oracle, abandoning plans to expand their Texas super data center. (Dongxin News Agency)