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OpenAI Market Manipulation

Concerns about OpenAI purchasing 40% of global RAM supply, negotiating secretly with Samsung and SK Hynix, and comparison to onion futures manipulation laws

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OpenAI’s reported move to secure 40% of the global RAM supply through independent, secret negotiations with Samsung and SK Hynix has sparked intense debate over potential market manipulation and predatory "cornering" of the industry. Some observers suspect this is a calculated strategy to starve competitors of hardware and cripple local LLM development, effectively forcing the public into OpenAI’s ecosystem by gatekeeping essential physical resources. Critics draw cynical parallels to outlawed onion futures manipulation, questioning how major manufacturers were lured into lopsided, non-binding agreements that have already triggered global price hikes. Ultimately, the discourse reflects a deep fear that OpenAI is leveraging its massive capital to orchestrate a de facto monopoly, ensuring that even if their software edge slips, no one else has the hardware to compete.

26 comments tagged with this topic

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The problem in this case seems to have sprung from a lack of collusion. Altman reportedly approached Samsung and SK independently to strike deals for a large chunk of both companies' production. Neither party apparently knew he was negotiating with the other. If they had actually been communicating or colluding with each other, they would have put the screws to him, making it harder for OpenAI to assert control over the vast majority of the DRAM market. Failing that, you'd like to think a regulatory agency somewhere would step in to keep a single player from hosing everybody else, but...
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> Failing that, you'd like to think a regulatory agency somewhere would step in to keep a single player from hosing everybody else, but... Up until AI there weren't really players being able to gobble 40% of the market so nobody was looking.
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> Neither party apparently knew he was negotiating with the other. I don’t buy it that two of the largest manufacturers of DRAM in the world, from the same country , didn’t know this. Even of you ignore each company’s intelligence teams, that’s also the job of the country’s internal intelligence services, to make sure they know what all companies are doing and then make it so they have the best leverage to gain as much as possible. Both companies would have known “somehow” and played hardball.
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Wut? How they [gov] would know that? By spying?
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How would the country’s internal intelligence services know what’s happening? Yes, by spying. That’s literally their job and they have assets in every critical area in a country. Every institution, every major industry player, they are monitored to a degree by the internal intelligence in every country in the world. There are more nefarious reasons to do this but the ostensible one is that if it’s of strategic importance the country needs to know everything there is to know. The companies also do a lot of spying themselves, every bit of info could give them an edge.
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To show ads you need people to stay on your platform. This is especially true once ads become more intrusive or of lower quality, something the big players seem to gravitate towards to keep revenue up. Google and Meta have ways to lock in users (networking effects, the best search engine available, having your data stored there). I am not sure if OpenAI has that. Their edge regarding models is small, their strategy currently seems to be "buy ALL the hardware so nobody else can". Users can quite easily switch to other models.
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Memory makers did get themselves into this situation by selling all wafers for empty promises and alienating everyone but OpenAI tbh. I do hope they end up holding the bag once again, cause after covid and the cartel thing they don't seem to ever learn their lesson on how to have the tiniest amount of integrity.
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> Memory makers did get themselves into this situation by selling all wafers for empty promises and alienating everyone but OpenAI tbh. Wasn't the problem here that OpenAI was negotiating with Samsung and SK Hynix at the same time without the other one knowing about it? People only realized the implications when they announced both deals at once.
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Did OpenAI's order actually kickstart the "panic" over RAM? Are they really such a big RAM buyer?
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Apparently... > OpenAI’s rapid growth, fueled by the success of ChatGPT and other AI products, led to a landmark agreement in October to purchase 900,000 DRAM wafers per month from Samsung and SK Hynix—amounting to roughly 40% of global supply. This surge in demand, coupled with limited manufacturing capacity, sent prices for memory kits skyrocketing. [0] [0]: https://peq42.com/blog/openai-canceling-many-large-purchase-...
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They ordered 40% of the global RAM production for 2025/26. It was a non-binding agreement that either side could easily withdraw from but they're essentially trying to buy about half of all the RAM.
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Blows my mind that it's non-binding. If I booked half a hotel's rooms then suddenly said "yeah never mind. Half my friends cancelled and we're not staying", basically any hotel would be coming at me for my money because there's no way they can fill their rooms now and they're losing revenue. But OpenAI can really get the whole world to pivot towards it then say "cool but we don't need your product anymore" and RAM makers are just going to let it go. Whoever decided that was a good idea needs to be fired and publicly shamed.
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Well if that hotel was then able to sell the other half of hotel rooms for 10x the old price. Then the hotel might actually be happy as they can now charge 10x for the other half or slowly lower prices back down over years.
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it's used for price gouging by the cartel if anything, OpenAi might be in on it
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Instead of canceling the orders, OpenAI could take delivery and immediately flip the DRAM for a profit.
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The strange deals on the entire future output are what was allowed. Try to do the same thing with onions and the government understands you are a criminal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act
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That is quite the amusing read but it seems like a poorly constructed law. It wasn't futures themselves that were the problem there. The duo engaged in blatant market manipulation and severely disrupted part of the food supply in the process.
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And now OpenAI is engaged in blatant market manipulation and severely disrupted the entire world's DRAM supply.
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Cornering the market with the intent to flip the goods is not quite the same as cornering the market because you actually want the goods and intend to use them yourself.
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And it just so happens that many people will now have to use OpenAI’s products because they can’t get enough RAM to run a local LLM. What a coincidence.
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Right, the second was a conspiracy to form a monopoly.
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I would expect that OpenAI gets as much money as they ask for for the next 10 years. There’s virtually infinite capital: if needed, more can be reallocated from the federal government (funded with debt), from public companies (funded with people’s retirement funds), from people’s pockets via wealth redistribution upwards, from offshore investment. They will be allowed to strangle any part of the supply chain they want.
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I fear that the real reason we do have a shortage, I mean, the real reason for the demand, is AI companies scooping what they can so that their competitors, whether existing or incumbent, can’t get to it.
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This was one of the theories behind the wafer buyout by OpenAI indeed. Pretty efficient way to make everyone panic and cut off of new hardware.
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Was it debubked in any way (e.g. by OpenAI actually showing what they do with the wafers?)
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That’s likely to happen if all the talks about OpenAI pulling out of their wafer deals are true.