Elon Musk Says Cutting Optimus Memory Was Tesla's 'Only Way' to Scale, As Micron Says Humanoid Robots Need 200GB+ of Memory Each

What happened: Elon Musk said Tesla halved the memory on its AI5 chip to 72GB and cut AI6 memory by a third to 144GB to reach volume for Optimus production. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said humanoid robots may need over 200GB of memory each. Key numbers: AI5 at 72GB of LP5, AI6 at 144GB of LP6. Why it matters: Musk said the cuts greatly reduce cost and should have a negligible effect on Optimus performance, since memory bandwidth limits performance more than capacity. Mehrotra said physical AI could become a significant driver of memory and storage demand by the end of the decade.

Elon Musk said Tesla halved the memory on its AI5 chip to 72GB and cut AI6 memory by a third to 144GB to reach volume for Optimus production. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said humanoid robots may need over 200GB of memory each.

Musk said the cuts greatly reduce cost and should have a negligible effect on Optimus performance, since memory bandwidth limits performance more than capacity. Mehrotra said physical AI could become a significant driver of memory and storage demand by the end of the decade.