While the automotive debate has recently revolved around horsepower and battery capacity, today the focus has shifted sharply to computing power. The CEO of technology giant Micron, Sanjay Mehrotra, dropped a bombshell on the industry with his prediction that the next generation of vehicles will require over 300GB of RAM. The reason? Manufacturers’ ambition to reach Level 4 (L4) autonomy – the stage where the car becomes an artificial intelligence supercomputer capable of making decisions without human intervention.
For comparison, most modern infotainment systems are satisfied with about 16 GB, but the leap to full self-driving requires lightning-fast processing of data from dozens of sensors, cameras and radars in real time. This hunger for memory is already felt in Micron's financial statements, which show a 200% jump in its revenue for the second quarter of 2026 compared to last year. To meet demand, the company plans to build large-scale “megafactories“ in New York, Japan and Singapore, which should operate at full capacity by the end of the decade.
Partnerships between hardware leaders and car brands are already a fact. NVIDIA has joined forces with giants such as BYD, Geely and Nissan, implementing the Drive Hyperion platform - a comprehensive architecture for level four autonomy. Although mass-produced cars will still operate mostly at Level 2 and 3 as of early 2026 (such as Mercedes-Benz’s DRIVE PILOT system, which already allows speeds of up to 95 km/h on German autobahns), robotaxi services such as Waymo are already recording over 400,000 trips per week in the US.
However, the transformation from a traditional vehicle to a “robot on wheels” also carries risks. The huge demand for specialized memory could trigger a new wave of shortages similar to the semiconductor crisis of a few years ago. We have already seen how Apple was forced to adjust the prices and availability of its professional computers due to a shortage of high-speed chips. If Micron’s predictions come true, the car will become the most complex technology platform in the household, and the capacity of its RAM memory will be as important as fuel consumption.