// PC GAMER — GAMING
The memory crisis led me down a rabbit hole into nations forming rival factions to secure the flow of computer chips and AI, with names that wouldn't sound out of place in a Command & Conquer reboot
Will you do your part for the Pax Silica or swear allegiance to WAICO?
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This week I've been diving into the past and present catastrophes facing PC gaming to see what, if any, positivity I can glean for the future. That's when I stumbled across these recently forged agreements on the global semiconductor and AI trade...
PC gaming has a problem: high prices for a key component, due to an unforeseen surge of interest. We're in the thick of it, with no light at the end of the tunnel just yet, as supply will take a very long time to catch up to the outsized demand.
Sure we have, lots of times. We're likely to get here again, too, as politicians around the globe have turned the semiconductor biz hewn of globalisation into something to be controlled and influenced by newly-minted factions with names you'd expect to see in a new Command & Conquer game: Pax Silica and WAICO.
Hey, when are they making another of those games? Anyways, global silicon gangs. They're a thing now.
So, why is PC gaming so susceptible to the whims of global politics and trade? You don't have to go far back through the annals of PC Gamer to find the last time we spoke of some huge problem in PC gaming that sounds awfully similar to the memory crisis we're in today. Most recently, the closure and subsequent disruption of the Strait of Hormuz.
Our Jacob Fox recently spoke to various supply chain experts to gauge the impact of the US attack on Iran and subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz. He summarises it having an impact on Helium, sulphuric acid, PPE resin, aluminium, and naphtha. Each one used in some part of the semiconductor manufacturing process, affecting both chips and PCBs.
"You could see, in a worst case, allocation, scarcity-of-supply scenario where we're going to be choosing to focus on AI infrastructure versus consumer needs," Exiger SVP of Product Level Intelligence Derek Lemke told Jacob in May.
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