Crypto-mining’s component distortion

One of the things I’d not really considered about the crypto-mining craze of the last few years was its out-sized effect on the market for components:

One of the perks of normality largely returning to the PC components market now that the crypto mining bubble has popped has been a big improvement in component availability. Video cards were of course the biggest change there – even if prices on the latest generation remain higher than many would like to see – but crypto farms were also soaking up everything from CPUs and RAM to power supplies.

It’s obvious once you’ve been told about it. It’s fascinating to think of the sheer quantity of parts that these mining operations would’ve required. It’s depressing too, given the vacuousness of the market.

I wonder whether the new craze in AI model training will soak all these components back up again.

Via Anandtech.