Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Memory chips – RAM and NAND – have become the most sought-after commodity in the tech industry thanks to demand from AI data centres. But Elon Musk believes that things will only get worse once the world starts mass-producing humanoid robots.
Musk replied to a thread on X. The original thread cited a report from Counterpoint Research over the likely increase in RAM demand. As per the report, global DRAM demand for humanoid robots is expected to rise more than 20 times, from about 8,300TB in 2026 to around 172,000TB by 2030.
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However, Elon Musk dismissed the report. The tech trillionaire is confident that humanoids will need a lot more RAM in the near future. “Silly Analysis. Robot RAM needs will exceed everything else on Earth, as you need the robots to be on physical substates in order to shape atoms,” he wrote.
You should know that the demand for RAM from AI data centres has already put the industry in a bit of a crunch. RAM prices have increased drastically in the past year, leading to a rise in prices for consumer electronics, including smartphones and laptops. And not just phonemakers. Even Indian businesses have felt the pain of the RAM shortage. Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has also mentioned the impact it has had in doing business.
But there may be some good news
It seems that Elon Musk has envisioned a way where we may see somewhat less of an impact from the growth in AI and humanoids. In the same post, Musk mentioned that super intelligence – the term for AI used by US President Donald Trump – will rely on orbital data centres for compute. “Super intelligence needs will vastly exceed that, but ~100 per cent of SI will be deep space compute. Obviously,” Musk added.
While Musk did not address if this could help keep the RAM prices down, it would, in theory, at least reduce the need for data centres on Earth.
Coming back to humanoid robots. It is likely that Elon Musk believes we will see much higher use of RAM inside humanoid robots compared to 39GB DRAM capacity per robot as estimated in the robot.
Humanoid robots must process real-time information from cameras, LiDAR, tactile sensors and other sources to understand their surroundings and decide how to move. More complex AI models, including world models that help predict environmental changes, would require greater memory and computing capacity.
Memory companies are also monitoring the robotics market. Micron chief executive Sanjay Mehrotra said during an earnings call, “Level 4 or higher autonomous vehicles typically require over 200GB of memory and several terabytes of storage. Humanoid robots will likely need similar levels of memory and storage.”
We are seeing progress in terms of humanoid robots today. Chinese players, in particular, such as Unitree have made major progress with some fast humanoids. Elon Musk’s Tesla has also been working on the Optimus robot for quite a while now.
Only time will tell whether Musk’s prediction comes true. But it seems that the RAM crisis may not subside anytime soon.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
