this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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So, do they just keep buying 40% of the production in perpetuity? What if production of those chips gets scaled up, do they just buy more?
It is a four year contract. OpenAI is hoping they'll be able to suppress their competitors long enough to regain their lead and firmly established a dominant position in the market.
I'm not too worried though for two reasons. First, I'm confident they'll eventually be in breech of their memory contracts for being unable to pay - as the whole AI market is a house of cards, and has no real path to profitability beyond hopes and dreams. Banks and angel investors will eventually start asking 'where are the profits' and begin pulling out the rug. Second, the chip suppliers began ramping up production (as you suggest) some time back, so the current crazy price increase should only be temporary once they have increased supply output in a year or so. They would have to sign new contracts to get their '40% deal' again, and the memory giants will have much higher price demands for any such deals in future, and I don't think OpenAI will have the money.
It's very hard, takes a lot of time, and is kinda pointless to scale it up, because everyone knows the demand won't last.
It's an oligopoly of mostly 3 companies who together have 90% market share. The third one not involved in this deal just announced they are closing their direct to consumer brand Crucial, and are focusing on AI as much as they can.
So this is only this year, but they can keep throwing nonexistent money at it in perpetuity as long as the bubble lasts.