I've developed a new fear of my 2025 desktop PC being damaged by a power surge or something, because it would cost at least $2K more to replace than I paid for it, assuming I can even find parts now. Compared to the rest of my adult life when I used to secretly pray for something to fail so I would have a reason to upgrade.

The US just finished divesting itself from its strategic helium reserve in 2024 due to the "Helium Stewardship Act of 2013"[1]

But, now we have a strategic bitcoin reserve.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527

In related news, diesel is $7/gallon, and peets coffee is $25/lb, and computers (hardware and cloud) are up 25-50%.

The official numbers claim 3% inflation. Does anyone actually believe that? We were seeing 30% YoY before Iran here in California.

The discrepancy is so large, I’m wondering if there’s an official explanation or some reasonable explanation, or if they’re just not bothering anymore.

It is not just oil and helium supply chains, it is nitrogen fertilizers also, and in a season when they are needed the most:

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/nitrogen-ammonia-a...

Step 1: Put the helium in a blimp Step 2: Fly around the straight and over to Taiwan Step 3: Pump it into the chip factory

There you go, solved it.

I remember hearing somewhere on this site that medical imaging got pretty good at building systems that recycle helium. Does chip manufacturing not do this or are the losses at their scale are still large enough that you need a substantial constant supply?

Thanks for the American clowns and their terrorism, now the working class people of the rest of the world have to deal with one more head ache.

So turning our backs on globalisation was a mistake after all. Everyone needs everyone to work well together. So much winning.

My PC was due for an upgrade this year (still using a video card from 2019)… so I really hope this keeps working for another … 5 ?! years

Can someone explain why helium is used for these purposes, as opposed to some other noble gas? I think there's more argon (it's about 1% of the atmosphere) than helium so is helium somehow special, or is it just cheaper, despite being rarer and non-renewable?

So the RAM prices are going to skyrocket again?

Tech divers are also probably gonna be having a Bad Time. Helium mixes are already pretty expensive, I assume this will make it far worse.

> South Korea is among the most exposed countries, which, according to the Korea International Trade Association, imported 64.7% of its helium from Qatar in 2025. The country relies heavily on helium imports to cool silicon wafers during fabrication and is understood to have no viable substitute.

I assume the helium is enclosed in a a chip's hermetically sealed package, if it were just for cooling wafers I don't understand why it can't reuse the helium?

Aren’t there huge stockpiles of helium in the US? I can buy party sized tanks at Target or big tanks at the usual places like welding supply places.

I feel like people in these comments and commentators in general are just kind of ignoring the fact that the US produces more helium than Qatar, and in fact more helium than the entire Middle East combined, nearly 50% of the global total. The sale of the "helium reserve" is (mostly) irrelevant as well, because there's massive domestic helium production. https://www.wmi.badw.de/the-institute/helium-liquefaction-pl...

I get that the current situation is stupid, but can we at least be accurate? Qatar is FAR from the only source of helium. (And yes, helium of any type can be purified to high levels. That's also not just a Qatar thing.)

Great timing that the US recently sold its strategic helium supply.

It's a good time to be Messer.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-heli...

I understand oil part. But why everything else can only be manufactured in these desert regions of the world?

Accelerationists gonna accelerate

"Helium production"? I'm assuming they're not running a fusion reactor...

The people trump relies on to make his decisions (if he's making them) include tons of far right accelerationists; so they'd be happy to watch modern society fall.

This situation would be laughable if the consequences weren't so dire.

I have problems adequately stating just how incompetent and ill-thought out this entire misadventure was. I say this because everything that's happened has been completely foreseeable and foreseen, including the ability of Iran to retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz.

This has been something many militaries around the world have planned scenarios for. Word has it any warnings from allies, the NSC and the Joint Chiefs were just completely ignored. And those estimates probably underestimated how numerous and effective Iranian SRBMs and Shahed drones are.

Beyond direct impacts on crude oil, refined oil products and natural gas, there are secondary effects such as ~30 of the world's fertilizer goes through the Strait. Helium from Qatar is an issue but at least there are other sources for Helium, being pretty much any natural gas well so equipped to capture helium.

We are the bad guys.

Helium output from the Persian Gulf is about 5 million cubic meters a month. Which (liquefied) is about 40 truckloads a week

This article is just hysteria

This is, according to Hegseth, just something they planned for, since they knew what was going to happen.

Completely self inflicted at the request of Israel.

Will this crash the AI bubble?

South Korea should be pressuring the US to cut it out with the unprovoked and unjustified attack on Iran. Both because of the Hormuz straights situation, and because next time, Trump or some other genius US administration might decide to pull some kind of similar stunt somewhere even closer to SK, putting it in more serious danger, despite of its objections, and of intl. treaties, and of basic common sense etc.

... but I'm not holding my breath.

Freight rate volatility is one of the most underappreciated risks in physical product businesses. During the 2021-2022 shipping crisis, ocean freight from China to the US West Coast hit $20k+ per container — a 10x jump that wiped margins for importers who hadn't hedged. Air freight as a backup is worth keeping in your model even if you never use it; knowing your break-even point at air rates tells you a lot about product viability.

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Iran will make AI go pop.

Somewhat tangential question - for the "Just Stop Oil" folks - is it the extraction of oil that is the problem, or the burning of it? If the former, then we have an opportunity to investigate more renewable sources.

Lindsay Graham has an easy solution to this unnecessary conflict: send your sons and daughters.

This whole administration is such a fiasco.

Thanks DJT, I am tired of winning, can we become losers again? /s

Remember all the e/acc people telling us to vote for Trump? Some mea-culpas are in order.

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It's almost like war is a bad thing.

Do you remember this quote from wheel of time?

"Let the lord of chaos rule" ...

Who cares about chips ?

These fucking yankee and zionist morons just keep pushing it.

Go Iran

Qatar is probably intentionally shutting down production of gas and oil in order to pressure the US to stop, independently of Iranian attacks.

In that respect they may be bombed by Iran but they have the same interests