“I've probably personally been associated with at least five different new memory architectures … I'm probably familiar with close to 100 that have happened in the industry over the last 30 years. And exactly how many major new memories have we had over the last 30 years? Zero.”
a16z Podcast · Startups & Venture · October 2026
Gelsinger, the former Intel chief executive, on why the memory used in AI hardware is still built from the same few technologies: DRAM, SRAM and flash. He blames the economics as much as the physics, describing memory as a business that made money one year in five, which left little appetite for research.
Transcript
…the light of day as well. I'm probably familiar with close to 100 that have happened in the industry over the last 30 years. And exactly how many major new memories have we had over the last 30 years? Zero. Which, you know, okay, DRAM, SRAM, Flash. Okay. What else is there? DRAM, SRAM, Flash. Flash
stacking counts for a little bit.
Barely. But anyway, so in that, it has been disappointing that we haven't created the next physics that enable low-cost, high-performance, resilient, manufacturable memory for it. So I do think, and now over the last 30, 40 years, memory was a terrible industry because you would make money one year and then you'd lose money for the next four. So let's go do R D in an industry that makes money one out of five years. It's just always, it's just been so terribly difficult because it's been driven by such violent commoditization cycles.
That has changed
a little bit, though,
recently.
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