AINewsTechSam Altman says it’s better for RAM to be in a data center than on your deskAs OpenAI’s buying spree squeezes the world’s supply of RAM, its CEO explains why he needs so much.As OpenAI’s buying spree squeezes the world’s supply of RAM, its CEO explains why he needs so much.by Stevie BonifieldOct 30, 2026, 8:48 PM UTCShareGiftImage: Justin Sullivan / Getty ImagesPart OfRAM price hikes: the latest on the global memory shortagesee all updates Stevie Bonifield is a news writer covering all things consumer tech. Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI.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 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 center.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 utilization in the cloud if you’re trying to deal with this very supply constrained environment.
And somehow everyone’s— many people’s intuition is the opposite of that.”Whether Altman meant your gaming PC or developers working with something like the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box or the new touchscreen MacBook Pro, the outcome is the same. Right now, memory companies Samsung and SK Hynix have long term deals with cloud service operators and projects like OpenAI’s Stargate that have reserved much of the world’s RAM output over the next few years. And the billions they’re willing to lay out for chips is why the laptops, phones, and other tech you use are getting more expensive right now.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Stevie BonifieldAINewsOpenAITechSamsung’s expecting the RAM shortage to last until at least 2028.Stevie BonifieldOct 29Apple raises the MacBook Neo’s student pricing againStevie BonifieldOct 28SK Hynix says memory shortages will last through 2030.Dominic PrestonOct 28Most PopularReddit will force everyone to log inThe Apple Pencil turned the Duo into my new favorite notebookMicrosoft’s AI future has fewer jobsSam Altman sympathizes with mathematicians, but says OpenAI’s math onslaught won’t stopThe touchscreen MacBook Pro is just a MacBook Pro with a touchscreenAdvertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native ad
