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- scrlkFeb 2000: Record orders for chip gear push SEMI index to four-year highhttps://www.eetimes.com/record-orders-for-chip-gear-push-sem...> Capital equipment suppliers have been increasing their forecasts for revenue growth in 2000 as chip manufacturers begin to add new wafer fabs and backend assembly plants. Last week, for example, Applied Materials Inc.–the world's largest semiconductor equipment supplier–announced it had increased its forecast for industry growth in wafer fab equipment sales to 46% from a projection of 19% at the end of last year (see Feb. 16 story).> The strong wave of new orders “confirms the strength of the current market cycle,” said Stanley T. Myers, president of SEMI.This time it's different.
- sklarghI’d think that orders for long lead time rivalrous slots of a very finite resource are basically OOTM call options for future demand. It says something that firms think demand is plausible but not a whole lot about how probable it really is. You can always idle these things, you can’t conjure one immediately.
- mwkaufmaEverything's fine, don't look at CoreWeave's ticker, look at (picks random other healthy company) ASML instead.
- emkoemkoThe title makes no sense... how does ASML orders where you get the machine in the far future predict AI spending?
- PowerElectronixAren't they always selling everything they manufacture? No matter if you are in a boom or a bust, ASML will always have a years long backlog.
- 1234974And Nvidia is the sugar daddy of SK-Hynix, which buys ASML machines. What could possibly go wrong with Nvidia being the new Federal Reserve?
- cyberjunkiePhew. That was close. Thought we would be able to upgrade all of our tech for a moment there!
- WhatsNameI don't think "running out of steam" is the expected failure mode here. We are talking about bulk ordering machines that produce chips that in turn will hit the market in half a decade. That's like adding power plants to the grid that runs the ball pump inflating the ballon. ASML will probably be the last that faces the ripples of the AI bubble going bust.
- bryanlarsenThe internet bubble popping did not cause internet traffic to decline -- on the contrary internet traffic increased rapidly during the bubble pop.Similarly, I don't think the AI bubble popping will cause token demand to decline. On the contrary, I predict the bubble pop will happen because of a recognition that tokens are a highly competitive industry, thus the margins of frontier AI firms aren't sustainable, popping their valuations.
- petecooperI'd kinda like the AI spending boom to end so I can, y'know, buy components and such at non-insane prices.
- fifilura> ASML's strong orders ease fears AI spending boom.By submitting this title you make yourself the enemy of the USA.Remember it is called SI - for "Super Intelligence".https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/08/trump-ai-super-inte..."<president> says anyone who does not refer to AI as ‘super intelligence’ is ‘THE ENEMY'"
- markhahnSo weird that they're inverting knowledge and/or causation.AI is a bubble because the demand story is implausible. The fact that someone is willing to make ASML orders (which is a >= 10 year indicator) doesn't tell you anything at all about whether AI companies can, in fact, get MANY ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE of revenue growth.
- _fwYou sell the most shovels right before the gold rush ends.
- marginalxI think the big question is how many orders are '0 or close to zero dollars cancellation fee'?
- socializer"Archduke's Death Removes Danger of European Conflict"
- toss1Despite the fact that chip making machines come before chips, this seems like a lagging indicator, not a leading indicator.These would be among the first orders placed in a build-out plan, and the build-out plans are first in a boom. The bust phase would very well happen before the orders are completed, and orders would not decline until the bust phase starts?
- mring33621Until we find a better substrate, silicon IS the future.
- vatsachakStrong orders predicated on future earnings of OAI and Ant?
- croesI thought the fear is that AI spending is much higher than the earnings
- ArtTimeInvestorThe stock price did not move.So nothing was eased.
- wigsterno it doesn't
- flyinglizardIf you buy the machines and not use them, at most you lost several hundred of millions of dollars (not really, because that machine still retains value for you or someone else later).On the opposite end, if you don't buy the machines in time, mispredict the demand and can't produce, you lose tens of billions.
- dborehamHmm. In a boom people over-order.
- stego-techI think tying this to resilient AI spending is misleading. The current AI spending boom has jolted a lot of fabs and companies into realizing that they’re not adequately prepared for the next few decades of semiconductor markets regardless of how AI turns out. That the previous market of divided consumer and business segments is ill-suited to a future where compute is more universal between the two, and that if they want to avoid one going bust when the other booms (like the current memory apocalypse) then they need to be ready to meet that sort of demand. Then you mix in nationalist tensions and China quickly rising to fill the consumer gap with older (but still excellent) specced hardware like DDR4, and the writing is on the wall for the traditionally Western-dominated compute industry: adapt to changing demands or die, just like manufacturing did.What I’m watching is the timeline. If China can get DDR4 kit out in volume (or even better, DDR5) faster than the AI bubble deflates or markets correct, then the future consumer compute players will be Chinese, not American, especially if they can ship kit at pre-COVID pricepoints.
- mrbonner[flagged]