US tech stocks see sharp falls over AI cost fears

Re:US tech stocks see sharp falls over AI cost fears by BeetleB on Friday October 30, 2026 @03:34PM (#50309077)

The reality is no one wants to be left holding the bag if the industry collapses. It costs $8-15B to build a fab for DRAM. If we rush to increase capacity, and the demand drops N-fold, everyone who rushed in will lose their shirt.

Also, fabs are easily the most complex manufacturing on the planet. You don't want to rush stuff like that.

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Re:US tech stocks see sharp falls over AI cost fears by asdff on Friday October 30, 2026 @04:02PM (#50309390)

That's it? That's cheap for stuff these days. Especially when your market cap is lets see 2 trillion for tsmc. 5 trillion for NVIDIA. 1 trillion for micron. 1 trillion for Elon Musk. Intel might have to get a loan, "only" worth 350 billion.

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Re:US tech stocks see sharp falls over AI cost fears by BeetleB on Friday October 30, 2026 @04:08PM (#50309467)

I was speaking only of the cost to build. There's the cost to run/maintain it (salaries, etc).

Keep in mind Intel is losing almost $2B per quarter on their foundry business. It's not easy to make the economics work out.

If you think the promise is there, then are you willing to invest all your money in a company chasing this? I'm not.

If I'm worth $10M, it doesn't mean I'll invest $200K in something I'm fairly confident will lose money. If they're not investing in building more capacity, it's because they're being appropriately cautious.

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