Sberbank may be to blame for the shortage of video cards in Russia

In the early summer of this year , an acute shortage of powerful video cards for personal PCs began in Russia. In large cities, they almost disappeared from sale, and those that could still be found in retail, jumped in price several times. In June, some retailers said that buyers acquire several hundred graphics cards at once. As a result, even those cards that cost 16,000–18,000, changed the price tag to 30,000 or more.



According to the information technology department of Moscow, in the first quarter of 2017 the situation was reversed. Then the average price of a graphics card was 9300, and in some cases, video cards became cheaper, but not expensive. Then, in June, they began to talk about the fact that the rise in price of cryptocurrency led to a shortage of cards. First of all, Bitcoin.



From spring 2017 to June, it grew by 200% - from about $ 1,000 to $ 3,000. Even those PC users who are not too versed in information technologies began to try themselves in mining - the good, instructions on how to compile crypto farms on the Internet are more than enough. Well, since powerful video cards are needed for mining, their "cryptoshakhters" began to buy in large quantities.



But, as it turned out, the shortage of video cards is not the work of miners. Sberbank stated that it was his activity that was the cause of the loss of graphics cards from the sale. According to representatives of this organization, the cards were purchased not for mining, but for an artificial intelligence laboratory. Alexander Vedyakhin, senior vice president of Sberbank, said that soon there would be no deficit.



In June, the online trading platform AliExpress also reported on the rush demand for video cards.



“We invest heavily in technology. And we should, by the way, apologize for some shortfall in the video card market, which happened recently, because we bought them for an artificial intelligence laboratory, ” said Vyadyhin at the Sberbank international conference on data analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence of Sberbank. Data Science Day. "But soon everything will appear, because we have satisfied our need."



Now it is difficult to say what exactly affected the disappearance of video cards from the retail sale. But the fact that powerful video cards have risen in price and it is not always possible to get the one you need is a fact.