Micron Predicts That Cars Will Need 300GB of RAM
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
Self-driving cars are essentially AI supercomputers on wheels:
As the company is raking cash from the AI infrastructure build out, it's also expanding its output with several planned fabs in Japan, Singapore, and even a megafab" in New York. These projects are expected to come online between 2028 and 2029, and the Micron CEO said that it's looking to boost output by 20% in 2026, which could help alleviate some of the pressure on the supply side. However, even as these new factories start production, Mehrotra predicts that there will be a new market that demands massive amounts of high-speed memory - self-driving cars.
There are six levels of vehicle autonomy, starting at L0 for cars that have no driving automation whatsoever. A vehicle with a single automated system (such as cruise control) counts as L1, while those equipped with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) that both control steering and acceleration, such as Tesla's Autopilot and Cadillac's Super Cruise, are considered as L2. On the other hand, vehicles with L4 autonomy basically do not need human intervention in any task, like overtaking or deciding when to cross a busy intersection. However, it still gives the driver the option to take control and manually drive the vehicle.
Nvidia announced that it's working with Chinese carmakers BYD and Geely and Japanese marques Isuzu and Nissan to adopt the Nvidia Drive Hyperion platform. This is the AI chip maker's end-to-end autonomous vehicle platform meant to deliver an L4 system to car manufacturers. Since this is an AI system, it will likely demand a lot of high-speed memory to be able to run effectively.
Most modern vehicles require at least 16GB of memory, but if car makers introduce L4 autonomy, it will definitely need a lot more RAM. We've seen this with the shortage of high-end Macs with up to 512GB of Unified Memory as many users have become interested in running the likes of OpenClaw on their own systems. It has even gotten to the point that Apple pulled the $4,000 512GB Mac Studio from its online store and raised the 256GB version to $2,000. So, if carmakers started churning out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of vehicles with AI-powered driverless features, Micron expects demand for automotive memory to pick up as well.
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