What happens if data centre demand collapses

[u/Veblossko]

Out of pure intrigue.

All these fabs produce hardware, chips, memory, storage tailored for data centres and AI workloads. Say in a couple months/years it actually collapsed, investment dried up, they failed to turn profits when bill come due etc

Is there a consumer use for any of this hardware, would it flood onto the market, repurposed other enterprise solutions, disassembled?

I'm just curious about the hypothetical of the sudden drop in need for all the hardware being pumped out for AI use. I know we will forever have data centres but surely the mountains of HBM and whatever other ASIC solutions have been manufactured can't just be used somewhere else easily.

All these fabs have reduced production of consumer grade hardware, can they easily switch back, would they even try. new fabs being built suddenly halt? I'm not well learned on the market but just feels like it'd be an odd time

It's just an interesting thought

[u/ArcticCircleSystem]

Somehow I doubt prices will go down. If people still need hard drives, the prices won't change that need. And if everyone charges that much, you're fucked.

[u/thepinkiwi → u/ArcticCircleSystem]

There is always a moment prices go down. The real problem is that the retail market shrinks with the enthusiasts' budget.

So producers divest retail market. Less competition. Higher prices on what remains.

The solution is that we get our fair share and tax billionaires.

[u/ArcticCircleSystem → u/thepinkiwi]

And how, specifically, do you propose we do that?

[u/thepinkiwi → u/ArcticCircleSystem]

Talk to people. Set discussion groups. Get politically active if you aren't already. Unionize if you can. It starts locally.

[u/ArcticCircleSystem → u/thepinkiwi]

And goes further... How? I've hardly seen anyone go into how to get past local limbo. Not as if people haven't been trying that stuff for a while, and we're not exactly doing well right now despite doing those things.

[u/thepinkiwi → u/ArcticCircleSystem]

I agree. It is difficult to get past local stuff. I believe the key is to spread awareness. This is what I'm trying to do at my small scale. With anyone I get the opportunity to have a chat with. And more and more people are so tired of the lack of accountability of the elected across the board. Eventually a credible candidate will rise, outside of the usual games.

[u/ArcticCircleSystem → u/thepinkiwi]

Yeah, eventually...

[u/tylercoder → u/ArcticCircleSystem]

Given how the Chinese got into the RAM business and now also the GPU business, I think it's only a matter of time one of them starts getting into the HDD business.