Sam Altman calls RAM in home PCs an inefficient waste of resources

Altman noted that many are betting on local inference—that is, running AI models directly on their own computer—and expect that with the emergence of open models, data centre capacity will no longer be needed. He himself does not share this approach. "From a global allocation perspective, it's pretty terrible to have a piece of the world's limited DRAM supply sitting in everyone's computer," the OpenAI chief said. As relayed by Habr, he also added that on user machines this memory is utilized only 5% of the time.

According to Altman, when chips are in short supply, equipment should be utilized to the maximum, and this can only be achieved in the cloud. He acknowledged that many people's intuition suggests the opposite.

The statement came amid rising memory prices: according to Kod.ru, manufacturers are dedicating more and more capacity to contracts with cloud companies and AI servers, while SK Hynix previously warned of shortages lasting until 2030. The author of the post on Habr noted that, according to his data, OpenAI ordered 40% of the world's DRAM output from Samsung and SK Hynix, after which contract memory prices rose by 171%.

Altman's remarks drew criticism among gamers and PC builders. Reddit users wrote that computers are purchased for gaming, video editing, and running software without a monthly subscription.