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this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
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Think the AI bubble popping will cause prices to crash or will some other "industry" suck up all the hardware instead? I struggle to imagine cloud computing/compute-as-a-service being that big of a thing.
The problem is that they're producing data center products, which are completely unusable to normal people. The crash won't put products you can use on the market, companies are making GPU's that can't output videos, computers that need to integrate with building cooling, and chips that are completely unified (so you can't pull out the memory to use even if you wanted to).
Prices will stay high.
Yeah it’s purpose built to suck ass. It’s like the old “car idling to solve sudokus” meme but in this case the car can’t be used as a car, it can only be used to idle, regardless of whether sudokus exist to be solved.
Once the demand for those gpus fall of a cliff they’re still going to have that memory produce and need to put it somewhere. There won’t be “gaming on a used cheap datacenter” GPU, but there will be memory that needs to be put into something.
At best it'll be back to normal pricing, the memory producers haven't really bothered to expand production, after all they probably make more money with limited supply. The contracts that companies have signed with the big three memory producers also, afaict, aren't just for "memory" in general, but specifically for memory meant for HBM and unified, so that "memory that needs to be put into something" can't be put in a normal computer.
I also think that even if the AI crash leads to increased consumer supply, companies will keep price gouging. There's no particularly good reason for them to try to return prices to lower than before. "competition" on the "open market" doesn't ever seem to be very good at lowering prices after a spike like this.
I mean, if they make it so it's the only affordable option. 'You will own nothing and be happy about it' kind of hours.
I think it’s unlikely something else comes along with the same demand AI has for hardware for awhile just with prices being so high now and when the bubble pops the rest of the US economy is gonna be in too rough shape to be investing much especially in something that would likely seem to be a similar risk as AI.
I think if you’re looking to get hardware just waiting until the bubble crashes will be smart since all the overproduction will lead to prices plummeting to get rid of inventory.
I have no idea what could suck up compute the way ai can.
The CaaS thing is because they project the AI Bubble popping in the near future. There will be a lot of unused data centers with outdated hardware lying around, they need to monetize them after the AI companies collapse or move on.
if i remember correctly, memory manufacturers reported that they sold out all available orders until the end of 2026, and that they will not increase production to meet the surge in demand. even if the bubble pops they'll make sure to force at least someone to honor these pre-orders.
on top of that, most production of computer parts either has already shifted or will continue to shift to data center products, which are not compatible with consumer parts. changing back to consumer parts will take months if not years, so it's safe to assume that shortages will continue up until 2027 at least.
the most plausible scenario in the event of an AI crash (in my non-expert opinion) is that most of the data center ownership will change to the hands of the few already existing tech giants that run profitable businesses (amazon, meta, google, microsoft etc...) or will end up in the hands of the US government (including the pre-orders i mentioned) as a form of bailout for hardware and AI companies, possibly in exchange for ownership stake (similar to how trump shifted the CHIPS act funds to a 10% stake in intel).
the thing about CaaS is, it is not what these companies want to pursue, but have to in the event of a crash. whether it makes sense or not, these companies will have to shove CaaS down our throat in order to be able to find some use for these data centers and keep investors happy. CaaS is simply seen as the easiest business for these data centers to get into. other possible uses are mass surveillance and MIC like palantir, so get ready for those as well.
the only possible saving grace are chinese hardware manufacturers but from what i've heard, in the best case scenario, they still need at least 3-4 years to catch up. even then i'll doubt they'll catch on outside of china and software support will probably be limited.