Latent Space AINews: memory up 500% in 12 months, DRAM chips 'worth over half as much per kilogram as solid gold'

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The August 19 AINews roundup collects the memory crunch numbers: Tom's Hardware puts the 12-month increase at 500%, with 128GB DDR5 kits ten times their historical lows and hyperscale buyers having reportedly locked up almost all global DRAM production capacity for 2027. Daniel Lemire's framing is the one that lands for builders, that "RAM on a per unit basis is about as expensive as it was in 2007" and this is "an historical anomaly." Two decades of price decline reversed is a direct input cost on every local-inference and self-hosted-agent plan being drawn up right now.