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Danox | on: Apple has new Mac app coming to make running local AI models easy
Apple’s position down the road. When the Chinese company CMXT takes a much bigger share of the memory market worldwide, and they will. Their dominance in memory will probably be pretty close to what BYD is today in the worldwide car industry.

I don’t think Apple can be in a position where all of the Chinese device-making companies can get memory at a significantly cheaper price from CMXT, and Apple is stuck with buying memory from the three hyenas of memory at a significantly higher price.

That’s not going to help Apple sell their devices at a competitive price worldwide over time against the Chinese computer makers (Lenovo, Asus, and Motorola) and make no mistake about it: their share of the market worldwide will get bigger because of this change in the memory market; their focus will be on the long term, while the lawyers/MBA/finance types in the West will have their heads stuck in the short term.

It’s the (Chinese companies’) opportunity, and they’re not going to let it pass; I wouldn’t. In addition, Apple is in competition with Nvidia, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Google, Meta, and indirectly with Anthropic and OpenAI (whose CEO, Sam Altman, recently declared that computer ram is wasted on low-level regular computer users), along with a whole legion of other 3D model makers on the procurement of memory.

The combination of all these elements going into the future means that if Apple wants to stay ahead, I believe Apple has no choice but to take memory in house, they have the design and engineering capability in-house, and they have the money because they didn’t burn it on AI models and data centers.

This scenario is no different than replacing Intel or Qualcomm; you can see the writing/destination and the ultimate train wreck up ahead if Apple doesn’t roll up its sleeves and get busy, the market has changed and again Apple has to change and adapt to the new conditions.

nxobject | parent | next
> The combination of all these elements going into the future means that if Apple wants to stay ahead, I believe Apple has no choice but to take memory in house, they have the design and engineering capability in-house, and they have the money because they didn’t burn it on AI models and data centers.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was happening already -- they plan five years ahead, after all, and they've been slowly taking other systems in-house (e.g. baseband/modem) already.

rogerrogerr | parent
Why do you think the Chinese wouldn’t gladly sell Apple memory?
kalleboo | root | parent
Aren't they on a sanctions list? Would the US government let them buy it?
esskay | root | parent | next
If I recall Apple was planning on buying it pending permission from the US Government, and when the memory maker got wind their price sheet went up to match Samsung, making it pretty pointless as they had supply, it was price that was a problem for Apple.
michelb | root | parent
Depends on whether there will be a sane government anytime in the future.
whycombilater | root | parent
You're from hackernews, hackernews is terrible and you're a terrible commenter. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Why are you talking about memory? Nobody cares about memory. You know what people care about? People care about ballrooms, and you know what, the US has the best!

People who know ballrooms say the US is hot right now, hotter than anywhere else in the world, because we're building the best ballroom in the world. Can you imagine that? China is nowhere on ballrooms.

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