Sam Altman says using scarce RAM in personal computers is 'terrible' amid AI-driven shortage
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has drawn criticism after suggesting that using scarce memory chips in personal computers is inefficient when the same resources could be deployed in data centres running artificial intelligence models.
Speaking on the Cheeky Pint podcast hosted by Stripe co-founder John Collison, Altman said the limited global supply of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) should be used more efficiently through cloud infrastructure rather than sitting idle in individual computers.
“A lot of people want local inference. And somehow, they assume that the problem is solved now because we are going to have open-source models, we’re going to be able to run them on our computers, and so we’re not going to need all the stuff in the data centre,” he said.
“But from a global allocation perspective, actually, it’s quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used five percent of the time. You want maximum utilisation in the cloud if you’re trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment,” he added.
His remarks come as demand for memory chips rises sharply due to the expansion of AI data centres. Major manufacturers such as Samsung and SK Hynix face growing demand from technology companies securing supplies through long-term agreements.
Infrastructure investments by OpenAI, Google, Meta and Amazon have also contributed to rising component costs, affecting consumer products such as smartphones and laptops.
Altman's comments also highlight the divide between advocates of locally hosted, open-weight AI models and companies favouring cloud-based systems.
During the podcast, Altman also discussed AI's progress in mathematics. He revealed that one of OpenAI's internal models used to seXColve complex mathematical problems was informally known among employees as “Model Name-Hold My Beer”.
He said the model had been solving difficult research problems that researchers had struggled with for years. Altman described feeling both excitement and melancholy at the pace of the technology's progress.