Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reveals the biggest challenge that computer industry may face due to AI — It’s not processors

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan issued a warning as the demand for artificial intelligence continues to grow and it has nothing to do with processors.

Speaking at Intel’s Annual Summit, the Intel CEO explained that there is no relief in sight for the computer industry as the memory shortage is likely to continue for another two years.

He said AI had ‘absorbed’ much of the memory the computer industry had.

“I think all this AI consumes a lot of memory. Our mutual friend Jensen (Huang, CEO of Nvidia) you’re talking to him this evening. And obviously, he needs a lot of memory for logins and the next-gen product. So I think it’s very important to have that memory. If anything is going to slow down, it’s going to be memory,” he said.

The massive expansion of AI infrastructure has increased the demand for memory chips and reduced the supply of traditional computers and smartphones.

He described the lack of memory as the ‘biggest challenge’ for artificial intelligence. “I think the biggest challenge for most of my clients in terms of AI is memory.”

Intel CEO announced that there will be no relief in terms of memory in the computer industry until at least 2028.

“Actually in my memory, as far as I know, there is no relief, only when I talked to 3 key players, 2 of them I talked to very often. Then they told me that Lip-Bu will not be a relief until 2028,” Tan said.

He noted that a friend of his had told him that Moore’s Law used to double every three or four years, but now it increases every three or four months. “So the increase in computing is so increasing. And my biggest challenge right now is to focus on our manufacturing, our supply chain, and making sure we can meet that requirement,” he said.

The shortage of memory chips is also driving price increases, potentially hurting customers’ appetites, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Intel will produce GPUs

Last week, Lip-Bu Tan told Reuters that Intel plans to create graphics processing units (GPUs), the chip category popularized by Nvidia.

I think the biggest challenge for most of my clients is memory.

Tan claimed it took some convincing, saying, “I just hired the GPU chief architect and he’s very good. I’m very glad he joined me.”

Intel is the largest manufacturer of processors for personal computers that rely on memory to store and manage data. Top memory manufacturers Samsung Electronics Co., SK Hynix Inc. and Micron Technology Inc.