AI demand causing tech prices to increase dramatically in South Africa

mylesillidge

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Bad turn for tech in South Africa

People in South Africa can expect to see dramatic increases in the prices of everything from media players to networking products as a global chip shortage, fueled by AI demand, intensifies.

Craig Nowitz, the CEO of IT distributor Syntech, has told MyBroadband that suppliers have notified them of impending processor shortages and price increases on all items featuring flash storage and RAM.
 
Demand for AI ....
i.e. people creating dancing cat videos on Instagram.

The problem is I use it contantly these days, so to just follow the current trend and label everything as "AI slop" would be pretty damn hypocritical. Interesting times we're living in. I tihink it's safe to say the most compute intensive AI implementation are mostly slop though. The video are image generation stuff are thing I don't care for.

EDIT:
Here's a list of topics that I've used OpenAI for in the past few months.
  • Professional software engineering support — designing, refactoring, and testing production APIs, data pipelines, and backend systems with real constraints and quality gates
  • Infrastructure & home-lab engineering — Proxmox, ZFS, LXC containers, backups, VPNs, PXE booting, and recovery planning
  • DIY electronics & system setup — Raspberry Pi imaging, services setup, network configuration, and long-term maintainability documentation
  • Hardware troubleshooting — diagnosing RAM compatibility, BIOS limits, storage constraints, and system stability issues
  • Home networking — WireGuard VPN design, LAN/Wi-Fi routing issues, DNS behavior, and secure remote access
  • Backup & disaster recovery planning — multi-device backup strategies, restore scenarios, and data-integrity validation
  • Plant identification — identifying succulents, trees, grasses, and ornamentals from photos and descriptions
  • Plant rescue & propagation — saving stressed plants, cutting propagation, callousing logic, soil correction, and recovery timelines
  • Climate-specific gardening advice — plant selection and care tailored to Highveld/Gauteng sun, rainfall, and winter dryness
  • Landscape & garden design — planning focal plants, rock placement, textures, spacing, and long-term visual balance
  • Soil science & drainage testing — evaluating drainage rates, soil composition, and amending poor soil realistically
  • Tree selection near structures — advising on root behavior, growth rate, wall safety, and future canopy size
  • Home improvement planning — evaluating practical constraints before committing time or money to changes
  • Personal health habit support — smoking cessation guidance grounded in physiology, habit loops, and timelines
  • Everyday health & maintenance advice — dental care limits, realistic self-treatment vs professional intervention
  • Financial reasoning & risk concepts — explaining probability, expected value, and trade-offs in plain language
  • Estate and asset planning — structuring wills, executor logic, and non-technical crypto handling instructions
  • Documentation & knowledge capture — turning messy setups into clear, printable references for future use
  • Long-term context retention — tracking evolving projects, decisions, and constraints across weeks or months
 
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AI will save us?

Yeah right, tech is good, tech will make your life easier...

But this is just orchestrated and AI is the escape goat for GREED. They see that others are milking it for whatever it's worth and feel left out, and jealous.

"NAND flash shortage could last for ten years. Phison makes controllers for flash-based drives."

Now that's just taking the piss... This bubble will POP long before that will happen.
 
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The problem is I use it contantly these days, so to just follow the current trend and label everything as "AI slop" would be pretty damn hypocritical. Interesting times we're living in. I tihink it's safe to say the most compute intensive AI implementation are mostly slop though. The video are image generation stuff are thing I don't care for.

EDIT:
Here's a list of topics that I've used OpenAI for in the past few months.
  • Professional software engineering support — designing, refactoring, and testing production APIs, data pipelines, and backend systems with real constraints and quality gates
  • Infrastructure & home-lab engineering — Proxmox, ZFS, LXC containers, backups, VPNs, PXE booting, and recovery planning
  • DIY electronics & system setup — Raspberry Pi imaging, services setup, network configuration, and long-term maintainability documentation
  • Hardware troubleshooting — diagnosing RAM compatibility, BIOS limits, storage constraints, and system stability issues
  • Home networking — WireGuard VPN design, LAN/Wi-Fi routing issues, DNS behavior, and secure remote access
  • Backup & disaster recovery planning — multi-device backup strategies, restore scenarios, and data-integrity validation
  • Plant identification — identifying succulents, trees, grasses, and ornamentals from photos and descriptions
  • Plant rescue & propagation — saving stressed plants, cutting propagation, callousing logic, soil correction, and recovery timelines
  • Climate-specific gardening advice — plant selection and care tailored to Highveld/Gauteng sun, rainfall, and winter dryness
  • Landscape & garden design — planning focal plants, rock placement, textures, spacing, and long-term visual balance
  • Soil science & drainage testing — evaluating drainage rates, soil composition, and amending poor soil realistically
  • Tree selection near structures — advising on root behavior, growth rate, wall safety, and future canopy size
  • Home improvement planning — evaluating practical constraints before committing time or money to changes
  • Personal health habit support — smoking cessation guidance grounded in physiology, habit loops, and timelines
  • Everyday health & maintenance advice — dental care limits, realistic self-treatment vs professional intervention
  • Financial reasoning & risk concepts — explaining probability, expected value, and trade-offs in plain language
  • Estate and asset planning — structuring wills, executor logic, and non-technical crypto handling instructions
  • Documentation & knowledge capture — turning messy setups into clear, printable references for future use
  • Long-term context retention — tracking evolving projects, decisions, and constraints across weeks or months
The problem is "free" AI services funded by gullible capital market. It creates the problem of unsolicited AI services and slop content

AI tools should only be offered at a sustainable price.
 
He explained that aiDAPTIV effectively expands memory bandwidth using the SSD, allowing laptop makers to reduce the amount of DRAM in a machine without reducing its capabilities.
How long has Swap partitions been around now? because that is what they are selling. Proprietary Swap.

Its also how you burn through the limited life of the SSD faster, so phison can sell you more SSDs.
 
The problem is "free" AI services funded by gullible capital market. It creates the problem of unsolicited AI services and slop content

AI tools should only be offered at a sustainable price.

It's a good point. It would definitely cut down on all the slop.

I can't blame these companies though, the strategy is clear, they're getting people hooked over time and once the real cost start showing itself we're going to be k@kking bricks. I'm happy paying R400PM for my OpenAI access and memory retention, but that cost is not close to the real cost yet and if someone were to ask me what I'd be willing to pay max, it would actually be a pretty hard question to answer, the time saving from AI usage is real.
 
"NAND flash shortage could last for ten years. Phison makes controllers for flash-based drives."

Now that's just taking the piss... This bubble will POP long before that will happen.

Jirr imagine, in 10 years from now I'll barely be able to wipe my own arse so as far as I'm concerned 10 years might as well be forever.
 
It's a good point. It would defininely cut down on all the slop.

I can't blame these companies though, the strategy is clear, they're getting people hooked over time and once the real cost start showing itself we're going to be k@kking bricks. I'm happy paying R400PM for my OpenAI access and memory retention, but that cost is not close to the real cost yet.
Exactly. I am already experimenting with locally hosted LLM tools for my team, because no way are we paying R4000pm after the bubble pops.
 
Exactly. I am already experimenting with locally hosted LLM tools for my team, because no way are we paying R4000pm after the bubble pops.

And therein lies the problem, the testing I did on the hardware I have available shows there's no way I'm runnig this stuff locally for the time being, and now with these price increases they've got us against the wall.

Chips like the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 and Apple's higher end M-series and whatever comes after it might start to become a fundamental requirement for home upgrades... the plan was for me to wait and just use cloud for now, but now with these price increases and the uncertainty over where things are going it's a bloody mess to decide what to do.
 
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And what's gonna happen when AI tech uses up all the potable water on Earth? Is AI going to generate more clean water?
 
And what's gonna happen when AI tech uses up all the potable water on Earth? Is AI going to generate more clean water?

This "water" meme thing around AI and datacentres has taken on a life of its own... ittitates the k@ out of me.

There's a ton of resources impacted by these datacentres, but, the idea that these things are meaningfully impacting potable water is ridiculous..... please, please stop repeating this horses*it.

1768242906563.png
 
This "water" meme thing around AI and datacentres has taken on a life of its own... ittitates the k@ out of me.

There's a ton of resources impacted by these datacentres, but, the idea that these things are meaningfully impacting potable water is ridiculous..... please, please stop repeating this horses*it.

View attachment 1877755
Are you a troll? I'm not engaging with that level of ignorance. F**k me.
 
My 16yo lad has been telling me this for the past year - bemoaning how AI is killing component prices for computers.
 
Rather return to analogue technology. Vinyl LP players still remain the greatest in audio reproduction as there are no compression techniques while those old Kelvinator fridges could last for 50 years. A Samsung "smart" fridge can barely last five years without issues. Bring back movie reels too.
 
Samsung "smart" fridge you say :unsure: :ROFL:


 
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