Sam Altman says it’s better for RAM to be in a data center than on your desk

Sam Altman says it’s better for RAM to be in a data center than on your desk.

山姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）表示，内存（RAM）放在数据中心比放在你的桌面上更好。

As OpenAI’s buying spree squeezes the world’s supply of RAM, its CEO explains why he needs so much. 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.

随着 OpenAI 的疯狂采购挤压了全球内存供应，其首席执行官解释了他为何需要如此多的内存。在被问及供应链短缺（如持续的内存短缺）时，OpenAI 首席执行官山姆·奥特曼在一次采访中表示，将内存放在个人电脑中而不是数据中心是“糟糕的”。

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.”

在参加《Cheeky Pint》播客节目时，奥特曼还评论了人工智能对数学的影响，他说道：“许多人想要本地推理。他们不知何故认为问题现在已经解决了，因为我们将拥有开源模型，我们将能够在自己的电脑上运行它们，因此我们不再需要数据中心里的那些东西。”

“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.”

“但从全球分配的角度来看，让每个人都把全球有限的 DRAM 供应放在自己的电脑里，且利用率仅为 5%，这实际上是非常糟糕的。如果你试图应对这种供应极其紧张的环境，你需要的是云端的最大化利用率。而不知何故，每个人的——许多人的直觉却恰恰相反。”

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.

无论奥特曼指的是你的游戏电脑，还是使用 Surface RTX Spark 开发套件或新款触控屏 MacBook Pro 的开发者，结果都是一样的。目前，三星和 SK 海力士等内存公司已与云服务运营商以及像 OpenAI 的“星际之门”（Stargate）这样的项目签订了长期协议，预订了未来几年全球大部分的内存产量。

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.

他们愿意为芯片投入数十亿美元，这就是你现在使用的笔记本电脑、手机和其他科技产品价格上涨的原因。