“Quite terrible”: Sam Altman says PCs waste the world's limited DRAM supply

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has argued that keeping large amounts of RAM in personal computers is an inefficient use of limited memory supplies, saying data centers can put the same resources to better use. He said local AI inference, which is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to cloud-based AI services, leaves memory unused most of the time, making it a poor allocation of scarce DRAM. 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. You want maximum utilization in the cloud if you’re trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment, - Sam Altman . In other words, Altman believes memory would be put to better use in centralized data centers, where it could continuously serve multiple users and workloads. However, his argument focuses on local AI inference and does not account for the many other reasons people need RAM in their PCs, including gaming, everyday applications and multitasking. Altman's position also aligns with OpenAI's business model. Although the company offers some open-weight models, its main products are closed-source models that run in data centers and are accessed through subscriptions and cloud services. Wider adoption of local AI models could reduce users’ dependence on cloud platforms and subscriptions, although data centers would remain essential for training large models. Remarks come as AI infrastructure providers compete for increasingly limited memory supplies. Memory manufacturers are prioritizing demand from data centers, putting additional pressure on the consumer market and contributing to higher prices for PCs and other hardware. His comments add to the debate over whether the world’s limited DRAM supply should be concentrated in large AI data centers or remain available to individual users. Source(s) Cheeky Pint via Tom's Hardware ⟨ Previous article Asus launches new budget laptop with 120 Hz OLED and 26 hours battery life Next article Titan 2 Elite: Unihertz refreshes compact smartphone with new physical keyboards ⟩ Add as a preferred source on Google static version load dynamic Loading Comments Related Articles Andrew Sozinow - Tech Writer - 182 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2024 I’ve been fascinated by computers, electronics and modern technology since childhood. I started writing IT-news at high school and have been doing it continuously for more than 10 years. During this time, I have worked for many media outlets, and now I am a news editor at 3DNews. Sometimes I also write smartphone reviews. In July 2024, I decided to try my hand at writing news on Notebookcheck. When I'm not working, I like to play videogames, do puzzles, and travel. > Expert reviews and news on laptops, smartphones and tech innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2026 10 > “Quite terrible”: Sam Altman says PCs waste the world’s limited DRAM supply Andrew Sozinov, 2026-10-30 (Update: 2026-10-30)