Elon Musk says 'robot RAM needs will exceed everything else on Earth' but only assuming we throw all the data centers into space
Humanoid robots will still consume only a sliver of the RAM AI does.
For about a year, the world has grappled with a memory shortage that has driven up prices for many systems and PC parts. The root cause of this issue has been the overwhelming demand from artificial intelligence data centers. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, recently suggested that the needs of robots for RAM could surpass all other requirements on Earth.
However, this assertion appears to be more of a tongue-in-cheek comment, given Musk's prediction that AI data centers would be housed in space, making robots the primary consumers of RAM.
Musk's comments stem from a Counterpoint research report stating that by 2030, humanoid robots will require 20 times more DRAM than they do currently. According to this prediction, the 8,300 terabytes (TB) of DRAM currently demanded by humanoid robots will surge to 172,000 TB by 2030. While this increase appears significant, it still represents a mere 0.05% of the current global DRAM capacity, which is estimated at 40 exabytes (EB), or 320,000,000 TB.
Therefore, adding a potential 20-fold increase in demand from humanoid robots is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the memory market and the continuing price hikes of PC components.
Written by urgent.news from PC Gamer's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
