In short: Apple deletes the largest RAM option from the Mac Studio +++ Anthropic Claude is booming due to resistance to the US government | News

In the case of the MacBook Neo, there is currently a lot of discussion in the forums as to whether 8 GB of RAM is sufficient. However, potential Mac Studio customers certainly don’t have this problem. The configuration with M4 Max has at least 36 GB of unified memory, the M3 Ultra even has 96 GB. If even that isn’t enough for you, the option with 256 GB is available for an additional charge of 2,500 euros. As if that wasn’t enough, Apple also advertised the fastest chip as having “more RAM than a PC has ever had,” meaning the 6,000 euro upgrade to 512 GB.

However, there is no longer any trace of the highest RAM configuration. Apple deleted all mentions on the product and order pages. The descriptions now only mention “Optional with 256 GB”. One assumption is that this is a reaction to the development of storage prices – but if 512 GB had been a particularly frequently chosen option, the reaction would certainly have been different.

Anthropic Claude booms through resistance to US government
Anthropic does not allow Claude (App Store) or other products to be used for “mass domestic surveillance”, i.e. for large-scale surveillance of citizens within the country. Additionally, it cannot be part of fully autonomous weapons that can use lethal force without human decision-making. CEO Dario Amodei expressly described these two points as “red lines” that the company did not want to give up, even under political pressure.

The Pentagon, however, demanded that Anthropic lift the restrictions and release Claude for all “legally permissible military purposes” – i.e. practically without the aforementioned security guardrails. Because Anthropic refused, the US government initially banned Anthropic products from all areas of use and now even classified them as a risk to the state supply chain, as threatened. This puts it, for example, on the same level as Chinese hardware manufacturers, who are also not allowed to be used in US authorities.

Claude is now experiencing more than just a significant increase in demand. According to Anthropic, the service has been recording new daily records for new registrations in all countries since the beginning of last week – there is now talk of one million per day. The reason is seen as a wave of solidarity and strong media interest. Not wanting to be blackmailed is currently proving to be a successful strategy (at least in the short term).