You're right that fuel prices have risen. But usually the impact of fuel prices is mostly felt on bulkier, lower cost items first.

After all, a truck can carry a 10kg sack of rice, or a 10kg nvidia gpu. If shipping costs for 10kg rise by $15 the sack of rice has doubled in price, but the GPU is only 0.5% more expensive.

Not all increases in prices are reactive. Some are anticipated. Inertial inflation is real.

For a truck yeah, but across the ocean, it isn't quite that simple because GPUs and grains are sent in different types of ships (or different modes entirely) that aren't interchangeable.

You're right - perishable goods have to be shipped fast. Your bananas, berries, fresh fish, and not-fron-concentrate juice can't be on some slow-steaming container ship with the furniture, clothes, building materials and vehicles.

The GPUs can though.

Rice is a nonperishable grain. Grain ships in neither of those. Grain is shipped in bulk carriers

And the GPUs are such high margin that they all take an airplane anyway.

That is other “different mode entirely” that exists to go across an ocean :)

This is driven by AI datacenter demand, not fuel prices. RAM prices have actually dropped significantly in the last couple days as the Iran war hit and the possibility that interest rates might go up and pop the AI bubble sunk in. (Though let’s see where they go after the last couple days of whipsawing.)

It's driven by a whole bunch of factors but I agree it's largely driven by AI data center demand

But still 30% of the worlds helium production is apparently shut down and ships can't get to where they need to be as efficiently as they have been so there is going to be knock on effects from this.