“625 times higher”: Dell CEO predicts dramatic rise in AI memory demand, community remains skeptical

Michael Dell believes the current memory crisis could worsen dramatically by 2028. At a Bank of America event, the Dell CEO is said to have argued that total memory demand from the AI market in 2028 could be around 625 times higher than in 2022. The reason, he suggests, is a combination of much larger memory capacities per AI accelerator and the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure in data centers. It should be noted that there is no official transcript of these remarks. The information comes from an X post by influencer and industry analyst Jukan Choe.

As PC Gamer reports, Dell’s figure is based on a simple extrapolation. In 2022, Nvidia’s H100 with 80 GB of HBM3 was seen as a key reference point in the AI market. By 2028, Dell expects systems that could offer up to 2 TB of memory per accelerator. That alone would represent an increase of more than 25 times. If the number of AI accelerators deployed in data centers also rises by a factor of 25, the result is the often-cited 625-fold increase.

The picture is not quite so clear-cut, however. PC Gamer points out that Dell’s calculation appears to rely on a maximum figure for future Nvidia systems. In more realistic configurations, memory capacity per accelerator might land closer to 576 GB of HBM4 rather than 2 TB. In that case, the increase per accelerator would be around 7.2 times instead of 25. Under that assumption, the overall rise would be closer to a factor of 180.

Reddit users are not convinced by Dell’s claims

On Reddit, the reaction is almost entirely negative. Many users do not put much trust in Dell’s forecast and see it less as a warning than as an interest-driven statement from a corporate leader who could benefit from higher prices or from a more dramatic market narrative. More optimistic voices argue that the current pressure could ease again if the AI boom cools down or if new competitors enter the market. Even though the memory crisis is still far from over, as reflected in TrendForce’s assessment and the continued stable contract prices of major manufacturers, falling DDR5 prices in the US, Europe and especially China are at least offering cautious signs that the situation could eventually improve.