AI revolution is vital for Boise’s Micron. We’ve ‘barely scratched’ surface, CEO says
Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra addressed dozens of business leaders Wednesday at a Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce luncheon and touched on several subjects.
He spoke about the company’s planned fab for memory-chip manufacturing in Boise, diversifying Micron’s workforce and an industrywide shortage of semiconductor professionals.
But there was one topic he kept coming back to: artificial intelligence.
Over sandwiches and coffee on the fourth floor of the Stueckle Sky Center at Boise State University’s Albertsons Stadium, the top executive of the only memory-chip manufacturer based in the Western Hemisphere — and Idaho’s largest for-profit employer — shared that in his vision for Micron’s future, AI plays a big role.
“We have barely scratched the surface,” Mehrotra said, sitting next to Boise State President Marlene Tromp, who offered up questions in front of an audience. “Think about it. AI requires more data in order for it to become bigger, for it to become more insightful and to really drive breakthroughs in various fields. As AI becomes bigger, memory becomes bigger.”
‘Touching every moment of our lives’
The generative AI industry, spurred by the popularity of OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, has grown rapidly in the past year. Mehrotra said he expects demand for high-bandwidth memory products to pick up as a result.
High-bandwidth memory plays a crucial role in generative AI applications, he said, because the technology is not just about data analytics and analysis, but about data creation.
“Next year, or the year after, you’ll start having more and more AI in your smartphone and in your PC,” he said. “I think the kind of experiences we’ll be having will be at a totally different level. That will require a lot more memory, whether it’s in your phone, in your PC or in the data center.”
During their discussion, Tromp said there’s a lot of fear about AI disrupting the status quo, but she thinks it’s a tool students can use to get ahead.
“I think we can use it as a lever to help our students become even smarter, even better,” Tromp said.
As the conversation turned to other topics, such as the construction of Micron’s planned memory-chip manufacturing fab at its Southeast Boise campus, Mehrotra again returned to AI.
“The increasing importance of memory, particularly tied in with the AI revolution, will be touching every moment of our lives,” he said. “It is very exciting.”
This story was originally published October 4, 2023 at 6:37 PM.
