Sam Altman says it’s better for RAM to be in a data center than on your desk
What's happening
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said it's "quite terrible" for personal computers to hold DRAM that sits idle, arguing during an interview that RAM should be concentrated in data centers where utilization is higher. He made the point in a Cheeky Pint podcast appearance and told listeners that from a global allocation perspective it is wasteful for everyone to have limited DRAM sitting in their own machines and used only about 5% of the time. Altman framed centralized cloud capacity as a better fix for the ongoing RAM supply constraints and said many people's intuition is the opposite.
Why it's trending
The comment landed amid ongoing DRAM shortages and debates about cloud vs local computing, so it caught attention right now.
SignalNewly emerging, confirmed across 3 independent source types.
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If Sam Altman is right, your next PC upgrade is less about faster RAM and more about a better internet connection.
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Original sources5
- Sam Altman says it’s better for RAM to be in a data center than on your desk
Asked about supply chain shortages, like the ongoing RAM shortage, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview that it's "terrible" to have RAM in personal PCs instead of data centers. During his appearance on the Cheeky Pint podcast, where he also commented on AI's impact on math, Altman said: "A lot of people want […]
The Verge AIOct 30 - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says it's "quite terrible" for your PC to have RAM — Sam Altman says data centers offer better utilization
>"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 5% of the time," Altman said. "You want maximum utilization in the cloud if you're trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment. And somehow many people's intuition is the opposite of that." sub
r/artificialOct 30 - RAM wasted on users PCs.. should be concentrated on datacentersHackerNewsOct 30
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