[okanat]

This doesn't solve the issue that globalism caused. Europe doesn't make DRAM nor has the know-how to quickly bring factories online which usually take 10+ years.

We are tied to American economy and if AI companies start driving prices up not only DRAM but basically everything will become more expensive.

[bootsmann]

America doesn't manufacture DRAM either, this is all South Korea and Taiwan.

[petcat]

??? Micron has DRAM megafabs in both Idaho and New York state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micron_Technology

[input_sh]

They don't "have them", they're building them.

https://www.micron.com/us-expansion/id

> Micron has already achieved key construction milestones on its first Idaho fab with DRAM output scheduled to begin in 2027.

https://investors.micron.com/news-releases/news-release-deta...

> Production is expected to start in 2030 with the fabs ramping throughout the decade.

Until they start outputting DRAM in any meaningful quantity, they're not relevant.

[ac29]

> They don't "have them", they're building them.

According to wikipedia Micron Fab 6 in Virginia started production in 1997 and is still operating

[input_sh]

> "in any meaningful capacity"

Building a factory is one thing, they can have 50 of them built, but that doesn't mean much if all 50 together amount to like 0.1% of the company's output.

Once those factories scale up to 1-2%, then we can start considering that they've actually built a domestic supply, but that's a whole different goal than simply building the factories. Building factories is trivial. Making them output something is also "trivial". Scaling that up to a meaningful amount is a whole different, much harder goal to accomplish.

[direwolf20]

Are you sure? I'd think producing any RAM chips at all is much harder than scaling up a working production process.

[VWWHFSfQ]

It looks like it's still a big difference between how the US and EU are responding to the chip supply wars. The US is actually building their own manufacturing capabilities domestically while the EU is apparently doing nothing, which is unfortunate.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

There is https://www.ferroelectric-memory.com/memory-chip-factory/

There is also https://www.vishay.com/ which expanded several sites in .de, without much fuss, or begging for subsidies. That is neither RAM, HBM, NAND, nor NOR, but nonetheless much needed stuff, for all the electrified cyber.

[bootsmann]

Infineon is _opening_ its fab plant in Dresden this year which was supported by around 1bn euros from the EU equivalent of the CHIPS Act. They started building this fab in 2023, while TSMC, who started building its fab in the US right after covid just delayed the opening to 2027

[petcat]

The fab that Infineon is building is vastly smaller in scale, and their tech isn't really relevant to this discussion. For instance, it doesn't produce CPU/GPU microchips or DRAM. Also only 300mm wafer technology, which isn't competitive for anything except for some narrow industrial use-cases. Glad to see the EU is doing it, but it's a completely different thing.

[petesergeant]

> Currently, 100% of leading-edge DRAM production occurs overseas, primarily in East Asia.[0]

They make DRAM for cars, not computers, in the USA. They've promised they'll bring manufacturing onshore any time soon, which effectively means they'll wait until Trump forgets about it.

0: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2025/06/president-trum...

[zozbot234]

That's not how it works, DRAM substrate (the actual chip that contains memory cells) is shared. It's only the packaging that differs.

[bootsmann]

Are those plants still functional after CHIPS act was axed? I thought they mainly produce in Asia now.

[petcat]

Well first of all, the CHIPS Act was not "axed", it is federal law passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the House and Senate. It would take a complete reversal of congress to repeal it and it's still very popular among both parties.

Where do you get your information from?

[bootsmann]

> Well first of all, the CHIPS Act was not "axed", it is federal law passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the House and Senate. It would take a complete reversal of congress to repeal it and it's still very popular among both parties.

DOGE cut basically all staff from the CHIPS Program Office, congress passed the money but Trump is choosing to turn it into a slush-fund the admin spends on industrial policy (such as buying a stake in Intel). Wolfspeed went into bankruptcy in part because the admin delayed CHIPS funding agreed by the previous admin [1] (it's unclear whether they received the grant now that they have left it).

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/4aac09f9-19df-401a-9ab3-ef14a47bb...

[petcat]

Once again, where do you get your information from? The only thing that doesn't exist anymore is DOGE itself.

https://wtop.com/government/2025/11/doge-quietly-disbands-8-...

[VWWHFSfQ]

> after CHIPS act was axed

This is news to a lot of Americans! The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act is codified federal law. I think a lot of states (Arizona, Idaho, New York) would be very interested to learn that the funding for the infrastructure that they are already building has somehow gone poof.

[voganmother42]

Intel is now partially government owned(10%), they got rid of some of the milestones. The current administration has been extremely poor about communicating changes as well as constantly yanking funding (or threatening to) for projects - the chances of funding going poof are higher than ever.

[okanat]

American companies are driving global economy insane. Currently the American political administration sides with the AI companies since it gives the inspiration that the economy is doing well. If things start to go side ways, the US government can put pressure on its local companies like Micron to supply other fields.

Europe doesn't have local manufacturers. So it cannot exert control over the manufacturers to keep its internal / strategic market sane. All European hardware manufacturers have to put up with and compete in irrationality inflated prices.

[spockz]

And China with IXMT.

[adrian_b]

Europe has stopped making DRAM relatively recently (Qimonda).

This should have not been allowed to happen.

[okanat]

Guess who bought Qimonda's patents?

[oblio]

Who?

[adrian_b]

Micron

[okanat]

and facilities went to China's Inspur.

[x_may]

Isn’t there also basically 0 American DRAM?

[UltraSane]

Micron Technology, Inc. is an American semiconductor company that manufactures computer memory

[input_sh]

They don't produce them within the US. They're building some factories to do so in the future, but as of now their output is 0.

[okanat]

However, the US government has / can have control over Micron's production. They are headquartered in the US. They have the intellectual property and know-how to erect a vertically integrated supply chain. Europe doesn't have this strategic investment.

[Fnoord]

Micron/Crucial has bailed the consumer market. Enterprise only now, FWIW.

[dangus]

The newfound desire to move away from American cloud providers isn’t related to pricing, it’s about the perception of growing instability within the American government, the perception of deteriorating freedom of speech, and the perception of an increasingly non-neutral business environment.

E.g., if I’m running a business in the US and I don’t kiss Trump’s ring (and pay bribes), if he becomes dictator for life in 2028, all bets are off for my business.

Both the EU and USA import the majority of their computer equipment, and the USA is placing heavy and unpredictable tariffs on those goods. It’s hard to argue that a business should bet that data centers will be cheaper in the US than in the EU if Trump is the last democratically elected president.

The most stable places to do business in 2026 are probably the EU and China.

[Mad_ad]

America doesn't really produce RAM either.