I think the Mac minis are popular for AI workloads because they have powerful processors and a bunch of RAM. With that RAM, you can run some of the larger open source AI models with many billions of parameters. BUT if you're wanting to run OpenClaw, you don't have to run the AI model on your machine. You can use a low end machine with like 8GB RAM. An old ThinkPad T14 or ThinkCentre M700 would probably be great.
I think the best models for AI agents aren't even open source, so most people just pay Anthropic to run the AI. Their API key gets entered into OpenClaw and Anthropic's Claude handles the heavy processing. Your local computer is where the agent acts, using the web browser, doing tasks, but the brain is elsewhere in Anthropic's datacenter.
I think that's how it works anyway. I haven't tried OpenClaw yet, I've only read about it.
I think the Mac minis are popular for AI workloads because they have powerful processors and a bunch of RAM. With that RAM, you can run some of the larger open source AI models with many billions of parameters. BUT if you're wanting to run OpenClaw, you don't have to run the AI model on your machine. You can use a low end machine with like 8GB RAM. An old ThinkPad T14 or ThinkCentre M700 would probably be great.
I think the best models for AI agents aren't even open source, so most people just pay Anthropic to run the AI. Their API key gets entered into OpenClaw and Anthropic's Claude handles the heavy processing. Your local computer is where the agent acts, using the web browser, doing tasks, but the brain is elsewhere in Anthropic's datacenter.
I think that's how it works anyway. I haven't tried OpenClaw yet, I've only read about it.