As RAM prices explode and availability becomes an issue thanks to AI companies, Micron announced their Crucial consumer business is no longer a thing.
As RAM prices explode and availability becomes an issue thanks to AI companies, Micron announced their Crucial consumer business is no longer a thing.
Sent out in a press release today Micron said they’ve decided to “exit the Crucial consumer business, including the sale of Crucial consumer-branded products at key retailers, e-tailers and distributors worldwide”. Shipments will continue until the end of February 2026 - but after that, it’s over as they will “continue to support the sale of Micron-branded enterprise products to commercial channel customers globally”.
As for why? You probably guessed it - AI! From the press release:
“The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments,” said Sumit Sadana, EVP and Chief Business Officer at Micron Technology. “Thanks to a passionate community of consumers, the Crucial brand has become synonymous with technical leadership, quality and reliability of leading-edge memory and storage products. We would like to thank our millions of customers, hundreds of partners and all of the Micron team members who have supported the Crucial journey for the last 29 years.”
Crucial did RAM and SSDs, so all of it will be going away from us lowly consumers.
I remember when bitcoin mining was the fad but illegal in some countries and when big centers were raided, they would be auctioned. Then they would go on sale eBay and Chinese sites. This was before ASIC bitcoin miners.
But now, the governments are fucking enabling this bubble and there won’t be a fucking relief until everything falls apart.
I just hope it is soon. The end consumers are already suffering, imagine how unis and science and medical research facilities must be affected, who actually use AI for good.
They’re gamblers and con men. People that get to controlling positions in these businesses generally don’t do it by being reasonable and responsible with the people under them, money or ethics.
The bubble isn’t in manufacturing itself. Evident by the way everyone here including myself is sad we cannot get reasonably priced new silicon anymore. There will always be demand for manufacturing. They are simply getting higher profit margin customers right now.
We are seeing the silicon engineer’s response to the AI hype hit the market which is a big reason production is being taken up. But there is no reason to think the AI ASICs (or accelerators of various flavors) will all fail at this stage. They are unlikely to even bring GPU prices down anytime soon either. It all sucks so much unless you are an asset holder in silicon.
With AI cameras and robots on the rise there really is no looking back…
if another company can produce faster than they can.
micron wasn’t just a designer and builder of these products… they also have their own fabs. there are only a few companies that actually produce the RAM and NAND chips used in these products. micron was one of them. the other 2 big ones are skhynix and samsung…
someone please correct me if i’m wrong, but this seems like a massive manufacturing gap that needs to be filled. it’s not easy to just find a new supply of chips.
Its not the first that this has come up, either. IIRC a tsunami massively impacted DDR4 production, i remember the 2x16GB kit that i bought months before had gone up to $500+ USD.
And by then they will have had their millions in bonuses and they know most people will be buying their crap when the bubble bursts because most of people have the memory of a goldfish.
Their goal is to make it so entrenched in major companies so that when the bubble does “burst”, they can claim they’re “too big to fail” and get bailed out by the working class. This is all while executives make millions or even billions.
Oh, I was wondering why RAM prices seemed so much higher. Its been ~4 years since I looked and gaslit myself into thinking my brain was just going bad.
Ignorance isn’t bliss when you’re living in an objectively crazy world. At that point, you either internalise all the craziness and believe it’s in your head, or you look up and recognise that it’s the world that’s nuts. I’d prefer not to live in such a world, but given that I do, I might as well not be in denial about it.
It’s not as bad as you think at the moment. Yes, what Micron did was stupid, but I digress from that, focusing on the bigger picture. There are other manufacturers of RAM, so we’re in good hands for now. It could change for the positive or negative in the future, however.
In terms of who manufactures chips for RAM, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron have a combined market share of 94%. I don’t know how big of a slice of the pie that Micron is, but it seems we’re down to two (and those two are also investing in AI — for as long as people are buying, anyway)
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
No Let’s Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates.
(Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources.
If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
I don’t think people are fully seeing how catastrophic this is going to be.
I remember when bitcoin mining was the fad but illegal in some countries and when big centers were raided, they would be auctioned. Then they would go on sale eBay and Chinese sites. This was before ASIC bitcoin miners.
But now, the governments are fucking enabling this bubble and there won’t be a fucking relief until everything falls apart.
I just hope it is soon. The end consumers are already suffering, imagine how unis and science and medical research facilities must be affected, who actually use AI for good.
Looks like Micron decided that consumers weren’t crucial to their business.
*laugh track*
Nah that comes next year
Touche good sir/ma’am!
Touché*
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/touche
I am aware how it’s spelt. Typo on mobile. :)
Isn’t it sort of already normal to know that all this ai bullshit is a bubble? So why would a gigantic company join at this time?
I concluded they don’t care because they will make a quick profit and will be bailed out when things go wrong, so the question would be “why not?” …
They’re gamblers and con men. People that get to controlling positions in these businesses generally don’t do it by being reasonable and responsible with the people under them, money or ethics.
The bubble isn’t in manufacturing itself. Evident by the way everyone here including myself is sad we cannot get reasonably priced new silicon anymore. There will always be demand for manufacturing. They are simply getting higher profit margin customers right now.
We are seeing the silicon engineer’s response to the AI hype hit the market which is a big reason production is being taken up. But there is no reason to think the AI ASICs (or accelerators of various flavors) will all fail at this stage. They are unlikely to even bring GPU prices down anytime soon either. It all sucks so much unless you are an asset holder in silicon.
With AI cameras and robots on the rise there really is no looking back…
Lets see how far it goes if AI starts failing…or even if another company can produce faster than they can.
micron wasn’t just a designer and builder of these products… they also have their own fabs. there are only a few companies that actually produce the RAM and NAND chips used in these products. micron was one of them. the other 2 big ones are skhynix and samsung…
someone please correct me if i’m wrong, but this seems like a massive manufacturing gap that needs to be filled. it’s not easy to just find a new supply of chips.
Its not the first that this has come up, either. IIRC a tsunami massively impacted DDR4 production, i remember the 2x16GB kit that i bought months before had gone up to $500+ USD.
Remember this when the bubble bursts and they come begging for consumer dollars again.
And by then they will have had their millions in bonuses and they know most people will be buying their crap when the bubble bursts because most of people have the memory of a goldfish.
Their goal is to make it so entrenched in major companies so that when the bubble does “burst”, they can claim they’re “too big to fail” and get bailed out by the working class. This is all while executives make millions or even billions.
I wish humans were smarter.
Happened in 2000
Oh, I was wondering why RAM prices seemed so much higher. Its been ~4 years since I looked and gaslit myself into thinking my brain was just going bad.
Glad to see I wasn’t just imagining it.
You’re glad this is the reality we live in?
Lol, suppose not.
But I’m glad at least I’m not crazy while living in this reality (though I suppose it my be less painful that way).
Ignorance isn’t bliss when you’re living in an objectively crazy world. At that point, you either internalise all the craziness and believe it’s in your head, or you look up and recognise that it’s the world that’s nuts. I’d prefer not to live in such a world, but given that I do, I might as well not be in denial about it.
That headline works whether or not that C is capitalized, heh…
It’s not as bad as you think at the moment. Yes, what Micron did was stupid, but I digress from that, focusing on the bigger picture. There are other manufacturers of RAM, so we’re in good hands for now. It could change for the positive or negative in the future, however.
Isn’t there only like, 2 other manufacturers of RAM?
There’s more as far as I’m aware. G-Skill, Patriot, Corsair, and others alike are still selling RAM I think.
They make the sticks, not the chips on them. There’s only like 3 ram chip fabs.
In terms of who manufactures chips for RAM, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron have a combined market share of 94%. I don’t know how big of a slice of the pie that Micron is, but it seems we’re down to two (and those two are also investing in AI — for as long as people are buying, anyway)