Computer with AI? It must have at least 16GB of RAM! Leak

In my opinion, having a computer with less than 16GB of RAM is something that doesn’t make any sense in 2024, however, the reality is that there are still many manufacturers that are betting on 8GB in order to increase their margins. profit, as is always the curious case of Apple with its MacBook.

Well, at a time when Artificial Intelligence is beginning to gain gigantic proportions in the world of computers, Microsoft points to 16GB as the minimum of the minimum. It’s about time!

Windows with Artificial Intelligence? Must have at least 16GB of RAM

Therefore, Microsoft decided to aim for 16GB in this first stage of the massification of AI in the world of computers. Something important, because the North American giant always has a huge impact on what is considered a minimum requirement, especially on the side of laptops and business computers.

Why this minimum requirement?

It’s all due to the arrival of several important features in Windows 11 (23H2), more specifically Copilot.

Basically, it’s all due to the arrival of “PCs with AI” on the market, that is, PCs with on-device AI acceleration for several new features native to Windows 11 23H2.

Copilot is Microsoft’s big bet for Windows 11 and the future Windows 12, which should hit the market in 2024. In fact, Microsoft is even pushing for a dedicated Copilot button on PC keyboards, similar to the which opens the Start menu.

However, what we can see now on the market is just the beginning. Since the big evolution is planned for 2024 with Copilot Pro, an AI assistant integrated into Office and 365, which the company plans to sell on a subscription basis only.

Everything in the Cloud? Not really!

In addition to cloud-based acceleration, Microsoft’s various AI capabilities will rely on some basic hardware specifications for local acceleration.

One of them is, of course, the NPU, with Intel’s AI Boost and AMD’s Ryzen AI being introduced with their latest mobile processors. However, the other requirement will be memory. AI acceleration is a highly memory-sensitive operation and LLM (Large Language Models) require a considerable amount of fast, frequently accessed memory.

Thus, Microsoft reached 16 GB as the minimum amount of memory for not only native acceleration. But also the cloud-based Copilot AI functionalities work. This should make 2024 notebooks set 16GB as their base memory specs! Additionally, it is likely to force commercial notebooks to increase their capacity to 32 GB or even 64 GB, depending on organizational requirements.

This development bodes well for the DRAM industry