Sam Altman calls the RAM in your PC a waste of scarce supply

Sam Altman has a problem with the memory in your computer. "It's quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer," the OpenAI CEO said on the Cheeky Pint podcast, arguing that it is "being used five percent of the time." His alternative: "You want maximum utilization in the cloud." The 5% figure is his own, and neither report gives a source for it.

The remark came during a case against running AI locally, not a call to strip laptops of memory. Altman looks at it as a global allocation problem: scarce chips do more work in servers running around the clock than in machines that sit idle. He also argues that open-source models running locally don't remove the need for data centers. Critics will note that OpenAI sells access to cloud-hosted models, so this logic happens to suit its business.

It also lands awkwardly because OpenAI is a major buyer in the same market. Its supply arrangements with Samsung and SK Hynix could reach up to 900,000 DRAM wafers a month, reported as roughly 40% of global output. Meanwhile, memory makers are prioritising data center demand, which is pushing up PC and hardware prices.

Why it matters: the local-versus-cloud AI debate is now also a fight over who gets the memory.