[xenadu02]

> Someone will fulfil the need as there is a high incentive to.

Unless the capital cost to compete is too high and the risk of the existing manufacturers undercutting you is very real. Plus it can take 5-10 years or more to build a new fab, debug/iterate your process, then start shipping product.

Markets are prone to natural distortions. This is one form of that. It can be perfectly natural for all potential competitors to choose not to compete no matter how much demand exists.

Frankly I'd expect nationalization of some of the DRAM makers before we see the rise of useful competitors. The more likely scenario is government pressure, up to and including arresting executives, to rattle the cages of the existing players who are way better placed to expand production quickly for relatively low capex. Not that I think any action is likely in the short term. My guess is the existing players are betting on an AI bubble pop so they don't see the use in really expanding capacity only to be left with idle fabs later. None of us really knows.