[bluescrn]

Or the winners of the AI race will make enough money to buy up the majority of global production indefinitely...

But even if things recover in a few years, Apple makes a lot of money from massive markups on RAM and storage and not allowing upgrades. If their customers keep paying, and I suspect they will, there'll be no incentive to bring prices down, not for the higher-end devices at least.

[daedrdev]

You can build new production, a chip monopoly will have incredibly profits for anyone bold enough to startup a new competitor. This is HN for gods sake

[bluescrn]

That's like saying you can build a competing railway network or a competing power grid.

Natural monopolies are a thing, and chip production has become pretty close to one with the vast resources and timescales required to attempt to compete.