The risks are not symmetric. If the RAM crisis becomes the new normal it threatens Apple's business model which requires large quantities of RAM.

On the other hand, if Apple invests in RAM production and prices fall, it's not like the investment is wasted, RAM is a commodity. They lose at worst the opportunity cost of deploying the capital inefficiently, but they have so much that it hardly matters.

Apple should take this crisis as a warning that they aren't vertically integrated enough to protect their business model.

As for batteries, Apple is not even close to the largest consumer of batteries. If they were an electric car company then yes they should be making their own batteries.

That’s a decision for the new CEO (thank God he’s a technocrat), more than likely Tim Cook, and John Ternus) probably have already decided on what they’re gonna do long-term, from the outside looking in Apple has already replaced five companies? In recent times.

Memory is well within Apples design and Engineering capability. Long-term, Apple has to think about the Chinese getting a bigger part of the market in memory because they can undercut the three company cartel worldwide in time with this fake AI memory crisis.

Part of the trump bullshit that the USGov has taken 10% of Intel.

It's actual corruption and the standard fascist model of corporate takeover by the state.

>It makes no sense for xAI to make their own chips.

The initial investment in chip fabs is so big it can't be justified when the established players already make enough to satisfy demand, but right now they don't so there's an opportunity.

It's still risky for sure but it makes some sense that it happens now. Hyperscalers spend 100s of billions yearly, at some point the amount given to TSMC gets larger than starting your own fab.

If success was guaranteed (it's not, as AMD and several others have learned) I think many more co's would start their own fabs in the current market.

As for why xAI, well why not - many of the others who can afford a fabbing attempt can't risk getting on TSMC's bad side even for a year or two.

There was a point made recently by Musk that the whole clean room idea is outdated if you can just ensure the path the silicon takes from wafer to lidding is clean. Seems solvable to me, but leaves me wondering why it hasn’t been done before. I assume there is no human handling of raw/etched silicon now anyway, so why does the whole room need to be clean?

So what? Maybe a hand full of full bunnies per shift, and another dozen or two half-bunnies. There aren't more. This can be seen/validated by some older yt-videos, where something went wrong in the fab, for instance a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOUP ejecting a wafer in wrong ways into a machine, then being ejected by that onto the floor, and shattering. Causing all systems to stop, and all the warning lights beginning to blink in an expanding cascade. At about 4:30AM. Maybe 20 seconds later two half bunnies with face masks appear, another 10 seconds later a full bunnie. Some gesticulating ensues, full bunnie opens his suit, gets his flip phone, half bunnies downing their masks. All looking very concerned and exasperated. Having a really bad day. No more bunnies appear over several minutes. Video ends.