'That's not going to last': Jeff Bezos believes AI will force you to rent your PC from the cloud, and the RAM crisis is accelerating it

The last few months have seen the computing industry shift in a massive way. On one hand, we've seen the likes of the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chip deliver a huge boost in local performance on a laptop (especially for integrated graphics), and on the other, the RAM crisis is causing prices on tech to skyrocket.

The key factor connecting it all? The push for AI. With the largest memory manufacturers shifting priorities to allow AI data centers to flourish, with even Micron stating, "DRAM shortages could persist for quite some time now," it's become clear that PCs, phones, gaming consoles and everything in between will become a premium as soon as this year. Heck, there's even a scare that some of Nvidia's RTX 50-series GPUs are on their way out.

Consumer RAM is dwindling in favor of power-consuming AI, and even SSD storage is looking to be a pricey venture. At the very least, Intel confirmed to Tom's Guide that there's "about 9 to 12 months" of laptop stock left before costs start to rise due to the memory price surge, and an expert also believes there's still some time left.

Nevertheless, it's looking more likely than ever that there will be a shockwave of price hikes across tech, and that very much includes upcoming PCs. Mind you, that's all for the likes of AI services such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot, whether you use them or not.

In light of all this, the RAM crunch alludes to consumer PCs being a vastly expensive purchase, and it's not looking to ease up anytime soon — with predictions being around 2028 until the memory shortage normalizes. So, what will the landscape of computing look like in just a few years?

As Jez Corden of Windows Central rightfully brings up, a prediction made by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos may be the path the computing industry is leading to: ditching local PCs for subscription-based cloud computing.

Rent-a-cloud

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In an interview with the New York Times, Bezos talks about how AI is the main focus at Amazon. That's hardly a surprise, seeing as every company is doubling down on incorporating artificial intelligence into their products, apps, services and more these days.

But the real kicker comes in when Bezos mentions a brewery he visited, and this company had to build its own power station to "improve the efficiency of their brewery with electricity." Since there was no power grid, they had to build their own form of electricity.

"At the time, that's what everyone did. If a hotel wanted electricity, they had their own electric generator," Bezos explains. "I looked at this, and I thought, this is what computation is like today; everyone has their own data center."

Interestingly, he continues to say, "that's not going to last. It makes no sense. You're going to buy compute off the grid. That's AWS."

That comment was said in 2024, and today, it rings more true than ever. Many online services and sites rely on Amazon's AWS to run (which is why the AWS outage last year brought down Snapchat, Venmo, Ring, Zoom and plenty more).

So, what if this solution is carried over to the likes of local PCs? You'd have all the PC peripherals ready in place, like a mouse, keyboard and monitor, just without the PC itself — all due to an operating system running in the cloud you can tap into.

For one, this has already been in the works. The best cloud gaming services like Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Nvidia GeForce Now and even Amazon Luna have steadily been making progress over the years, so much so that Microsoft now calls everything an Xbox. Even GeForce Now also offers RTX 5080-levels of gaming performance. But even before that, Netflix made streaming movies and shows the norm over physical media.

Now, this isn't to say these services aren't expensive (the Xbox Game Pass price hike to $30 per month isn't ideal), but compared to the inflated prices we'll pay for PCs due to the RAM crisis, it gives companies reason to start renting out hardware to be used for cloud computing.

It's a scary thought, but one that RAMageddon is further pushing.

Will the AI bubble burst first?

AI is the priority for a majority of tech companies, and billions of dollars are being pumped into data centers to make sure the results are worth the price. But right now, virtually everything a consumer sees is AI slop and Grok being used to generate sexualized images. Not exactly "next-gen."

ChatGPT's Sam Altman has stated we're in an AI bubble, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has defended against the "doomer narrative" people have tagged it. The question is, will the bubble burst before we see all the real benefits of artificial intelligence come to light? That's hard to say, but either way, tech will become expensive in the process.

Whether it will become costly enough for companies to resort to subscription-based cloud computing to favor the demand for AI or not? I doubt that will happen anytime soon, but Bezos' comments reveal a shift for the future of computing — one that sees PC hardware become such a premium that we'd resort to the cloud instead.

Either way, PCs are going to get expensive, so if you're looking for an upgrade, you'll want to buy now or wait for RAMageddon to blow over.

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