Sam Altman says RAM belongs in data centers, not on desks

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview reported by The Verge on Oct 30, 2026 that it is "terrible" to have RAM in personal PCs instead of data centers, as the company’s buying spree squeezes the world’s supply of RAM. Speaking on the Cheeky Pint podcast, Altman argued that limited DRAM should be used where it can reach maximum utilization. He also commented on AI’s impact on math during the appearance.

Altman’s argument on local inference

Altman addressed the idea that open-source models will let people run AI on their own computers and reduce the need for data center hardware. He 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." Altman also said many people’s intuition is the opposite of that.

Supply deals and consumer prices

Memory companies Samsung and SK Hynix have long term deals with cloud service operators and projects like OpenAI’s Stargate, reserving much of the world’s RAM output over the next few years. The billions they are willing to lay out for chips is why laptops, phones, and other tech are getting more expensive right now. Separate Verge reports say Samsung expects the RAM shortage to last until at least 2028 and SK Hynix says memory shortages will last through 2030.

Sources: The Verge · Tom's Hardware