A new report states that Microsoft has provided baseline specifications for AI PCs and increased memory capacity is a priority. Increased memory requirements for PCs, regardless of platform, are always to be expected as new technology and features get introduced over time so it’s no big surprise that the age of 8 GB of RAM is on its way out. After all, as the jokes go, exactly how many Chrome tabs were you hoping to keep open at one time anyway?
Trendforce has reported on the ongoing commercialization of AI servers and AI PCs with a focus on Microsoft’s Copilot AI features. The new report states that Microsoft has set a new minimum memory requirement of 16 GB. While most pre-built desktops usually have this, or more, the mobile industry typically lags a bit behind in this regard, but devices with larger memory capacities have become easier to find there too thanks to increased marketing towards productivity usage and content creation. As PC manufacturers continue to incorporate these larger memory capacities it too is expected that there will be a higher demand in the memory manufacturing sector.
Per Trendforce:
“Microsoft has set the baseline for DRAM in AI PCs at 16 GB. In the long term, TrendForce projects that AI PCs will catalyze an increase in annual demand for PC DRAM bits, with consumer upgrade trends further boosting this demand.”
Trendforce also shares that Microsoft is requiring 40 TOPS of computational power for AI PCs This is expected to be achieved via a combination of CPU, GPU, or NPU technology which should become more common by the end of 2024 and in mass production by 2025 with the launch of Intel’s Lunar Lake processors. Until then, newly launched AI PCs with Intel’s Meteor Lake processors are said to be just under the 40 TOPS threshold, and as explained by Tom’s Hardware these current processors are “almost” at that level of power but not quite.
Per Tom’s Hardware:
“We said ‘almost’ above, and that is an important caveat, as the combined CPU, GPU, and NPU power within Intel’s current Meteor Lake chips are said to reach 34 TOPS at best.”
AMD and Qualcomm are expected to bridge the gap in their upcoming lineups. The AMD Ryzen 8000 series and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processors are both expected to provide roughly 45 TOPS. The last piece in this particular puzzle comes back to RAM but this time concerning its speed. Since storage technology has already been reaching epic potential speeds via PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 NVMe drives, although with caveats regarding cooling, the next elephant in the room is keeping processors from being bottlenecked by slow memory modules. However, this too has been something that has improved significantly with the introduction of DDR4 and now DDR5. In turn mobile memory such as LPDDR5x should take mobile AI PC computing to the next level at an estimated 7500-8533 Mbps, that is if RAM manufacturers can meet the ongoing increased demand for both.
Per Trendforce:
“Consequently, TrendForce forecasts that LPDDR will represent approximately 30–35% of PC DRAM demand this year, with future increases driven by the specifications set forth by AI PC CPU manufacturers, leading to a further rise in LPDDR adoption.”