OpenAI wants to change the world, but it needs money.
OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, is looking to attract trillions of dollars in investment to revolutionize the global semiconductor industry, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Altman has long discussed the problem of supply and demand for artificial intelligence chips: many major AI players need them, but they are not enough, which limits the growth of OpenAI. According to The Wall Street Journal, he is considering a project that will increase the world's chip production capacity, and is in talks with various investors, including the government of the United Arab Emirates. To implement this project, Altman may need from 5 to 7 trillion dollars.
On Wednesday, Altman wrote in X that OpenAI believes that "the world needs more AI infrastructure — manufacturing capacity, energy, data centers, etc. - than people are planning to build right now." He added that "building large-scale AI infrastructure and a reliable supply chain is critical to economic competitiveness" and that OpenAI will try to help with this.
The news follows some controversy surrounding Altman's previous ventures and investments in the chip space.
Shortly before Altman's temporary suspension as CEO of OpenAI, he allegedly sought billions of dollars for a new and yet-to-be-formed chip manufacturing venture, codenamed "Tigris," while traveling to the Middle East to raise funds from investors.
In 2018, Altman personally invested in the AI chip startup Rain Neuromorphics, located near the OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco, and in 2019, OpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $ 51 million on Rain chips. In December, the US forced a venture capital firm backed by Saudi Aramco to sell its stakes in Rain.
Nvidia became a big earner during the generative AI boom last year, tripling its market cap in 2023. The company's GPUs are used to power large language models built by OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, and a growing number of well-funded startups, all of which are vying for market share in generative AI.
Nvidia currently controls about 80% of the AI chip market with a current market capitalization of about $ 1.72 trillion, which is not far from outperforming tech giants like Amazon and Alphabet. Altman is probably looking to change that.
In November 2022, with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT, the company had a limited amount of GPU and computing power at its disposal, positioning itself primarily as a developer of tools for programmers and enterprises. In the context of the release of ChatGPT, chief operating officer Brad Lightcup noted that Altman insisted on the need to experiment, convinced that text communication with artificial intelligence has special value and is able to establish a deeper connection.
This step paid off. ChatGPT has set records as the fastest-growing consumer app in history and now has more than 100 million weekly active users, and is used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies, according to OpenAI.
Last November, Altman was suspended by the OpenAI board of directors, prompting resignations — or threats of resignations-including an open letter signed by virtually all OpenAI employees and outrage from investors, including Microsoft. Within a week, Altman returned to the company. Since then, OpenAI has announced a new board of directors that includes former Salesforce co-chairman Bret Taylor, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo. Microsoft has been given a non-voting board observer position, and the company still plans to add more seats.
OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, is looking to attract trillions of dollars in investment to revolutionize the global semiconductor industry, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Altman has long discussed the problem of supply and demand for artificial intelligence chips: many major AI players need them, but they are not enough, which limits the growth of OpenAI. According to The Wall Street Journal, he is considering a project that will increase the world's chip production capacity, and is in talks with various investors, including the government of the United Arab Emirates. To implement this project, Altman may need from 5 to 7 trillion dollars.
On Wednesday, Altman wrote in X that OpenAI believes that "the world needs more AI infrastructure — manufacturing capacity, energy, data centers, etc. - than people are planning to build right now." He added that "building large-scale AI infrastructure and a reliable supply chain is critical to economic competitiveness" and that OpenAI will try to help with this.
The news follows some controversy surrounding Altman's previous ventures and investments in the chip space.
Shortly before Altman's temporary suspension as CEO of OpenAI, he allegedly sought billions of dollars for a new and yet-to-be-formed chip manufacturing venture, codenamed "Tigris," while traveling to the Middle East to raise funds from investors.
In 2018, Altman personally invested in the AI chip startup Rain Neuromorphics, located near the OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco, and in 2019, OpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $ 51 million on Rain chips. In December, the US forced a venture capital firm backed by Saudi Aramco to sell its stakes in Rain.
Nvidia became a big earner during the generative AI boom last year, tripling its market cap in 2023. The company's GPUs are used to power large language models built by OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, and a growing number of well-funded startups, all of which are vying for market share in generative AI.
Nvidia currently controls about 80% of the AI chip market with a current market capitalization of about $ 1.72 trillion, which is not far from outperforming tech giants like Amazon and Alphabet. Altman is probably looking to change that.
In November 2022, with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT, the company had a limited amount of GPU and computing power at its disposal, positioning itself primarily as a developer of tools for programmers and enterprises. In the context of the release of ChatGPT, chief operating officer Brad Lightcup noted that Altman insisted on the need to experiment, convinced that text communication with artificial intelligence has special value and is able to establish a deeper connection.
This step paid off. ChatGPT has set records as the fastest-growing consumer app in history and now has more than 100 million weekly active users, and is used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies, according to OpenAI.
Last November, Altman was suspended by the OpenAI board of directors, prompting resignations — or threats of resignations-including an open letter signed by virtually all OpenAI employees and outrage from investors, including Microsoft. Within a week, Altman returned to the company. Since then, OpenAI has announced a new board of directors that includes former Salesforce co-chairman Bret Taylor, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo. Microsoft has been given a non-voting board observer position, and the company still plans to add more seats.
