How do you define "genuine demand" for a process that can scale pretty much infinitely, albeit with diminishing returns? Since the RAM contracts are sized based on future projections, chances are good they are buying more than they'll actually need.

And they're already cornering the market! If memory prices hadn't quadrupled, I bet you'd see lots more commercial activity working on local models. OpenAI is actively preventing this entire market segment from growing, AND they're hurting tons of tech-dependent markets at the same time. It's no coincidence that this allows them to ask for higher prices.