Back to News

AI hyperscaler demand quintuples flash memory prices, shifting power from Apple to suppliers

#flash memory#ai hyperscalers#apple#kioxia

According to a Wall Street Journal report, surging demand from AI hyperscalers has quintupled flash memory prices, fundamentally shifting negotiating power in the market. Apple, which for years pressured flash-storage makers into steep discounts, now faces suppliers like Kioxia who hold the upper hand as AI firms bid up prices and consume supply.

Coverage timeline

  1. Techmeme

    Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal : How surging demand from AI hyperscalers has quintupled flash memory prices and shifted market and negotiating power from Apple to suppliers like Kioxia — The iPhone maker for years bullied flash-storage makers into steep discounts—until AI hyperscalers bid up prices and gobbled up supply

Related stories

  • OpenAI and Anthropic cut LLM prices by up to 80% in months, analysts cite competition

    Between June and October, OpenAI and Anthropic aggressively cut prices for their large language models by up to 80%, according to analyses on Hacker News and Max Woolf's blog. The price cuts are attributed to low switching costs for customers and intense competition from open-weight models, which have pressured proprietary providers to lower prices.

    2 reports · 2 sources439 points · 436 comments
  • SpaceX secures ~$40B Apollo lease for Nvidia GPUs; Musk warns of AI debt crunch

    SpaceX has signed a roughly $40 billion equipment-finance lease with Apollo Global Management to fund purchases of Nvidia GPUs for its AI initiatives, with the deal set to close before the end of 2026. In a regulatory filing, SpaceX called it the largest committed GPU financing ever. Separately, Elon Musk stated that debt markets have largely shut off credit for AI data center firms and predicted that over 200 neoclouds face death and consolidation.

    3 reports · 2 sources
  • Nvidia in talks to acquire or invest in Reflection AI, possibly as acquihire

    The Financial Times reports, citing sources, that Nvidia is in talks to acquire or increase investment in US open-weights AI startup Reflection AI. The deal may be structured as an acquihire to avoid antitrust scrutiny, and the Trump administration hopes the company will rival cheap Chinese alternatives such as DeepSeek.

    1 reports · 1 sources
  • Broadcom arranges over $50B financing for OpenAI custom AI chip; Oracle in talks for chip purchase financing

    According to sources cited by the Wall Street Journal, Broadcom has been working to arrange more than $50 billion in financing for OpenAI's custom AI chip. Oracle is in talks for financing related to a large chip purchase, with Apollo, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs among lenders discussing megadeals worth tens of billions of dollars each.

    1 reports · 1 sources

News updates every hour. Subscribe in your RSS reader to get new stories automatically.

Subscribe