// PC GAMER — GAMING
Elon Musk says 'robot RAM needs will exceed everything else on Earth' but only assuming we throw all the data centers into space
Humanoid robots will still consume only a sliver of the RAM AI does.
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"Robot RAM needs will exceed everything else on Earth, as you need the robots to be on physical substates in order to shape atoms.
"Super intelligence needs will vastly exceed that, but ~100% of SI will be deep space compute. Obviously."
We've been in a global memory shortage for about a year now, causing many of our systems and PC parts to drastically increase in price. Since then, it's very much been a guessing game how long it will all go on for. The primary cause of the shortage has been the insatiable demand of AI data centres, so we've naturally assumed if that dies down or if memory production can match it, all will be well again.
We might worry that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO's proclamation that "Robot RAM needs will exceed everything else on Earth" will prevent this. But it's not something we should worry about for a very long time, as even if the amount of RAM robots use increases and we start producing way more robots, they will still demand far, far less than AI data centres currently do.
There's an element of flippancy to Musk's comments, of course, given he's saying that AI data centers will be housed in space and therefore robots will be the biggest guzzlers of RAM on the planet—this doesn't imply that robots will require more RAM than AI.
In the context of what Musk is replying to on X, it's nevertheless clear he's saying they will demand a lot. Musk's comments are a defence of some Counterpoint research that reportedly claims that by 2030, humanoid robots will demand 20x more DRAM than they do right now.
P Equity Research has shared a chart from Counterpoint which lays out this predicted increase in demand. Apparently, the current 8,300 Tb worth of DRAM demanded by "humanoid robot brains" will increase to 172,000 Tb by 2030.
@zephyr_z9 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.
Super intelligence needs will vastly exceed that, but ~100% of SI will be deep space compute. Obviously.October 26, 2026