Sam Altman, the chief of OpenAI, is on a mission to secure trillions of dollars in funding to overhaul the global semiconductor industry. According to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday, Altman has engaged in discussions with several potential investors, including the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The initiative aims to address some of the most pressing issues confronting the rapidly growing artificial intelligence sector, such as the scarcity of sophisticated computer chips necessary for powering large-language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Currently, the semiconductor industry is controlled by a limited number of companies, notably Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and the US-based NVIDIA.
Although various nations have announced initiatives to bolster local chip production, the financial backing they have pledged significantly falls short of the enormous amounts Altman is purportedly negotiating with investors.
The Wall Street Journal suggests that the overall cost to bring Altman’s vision to fruition could reach up to $7 trillion. This figure surpasses the combined market value of the world’s two largest publicly traded companies, Apple and Microsoft, by approximately one trillion dollars.
An OpenAI spokesperson informed the Journal that the company has engaged in “productive discussions about increasing global infrastructure and supply chains for chips, energy, and data centres.” The spokesperson also mentioned OpenAI’s commitment to keeping the US government apprised due to the project’s relevance to national objectives.
Altman has reportedly met with senior officials from the UAE, as well as SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son and representatives from TSMC. Bloomberg and the Financial Times have also covered some of Altman’s recent discussions.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Altman has proposed the construction of numerous chip-fabrication facilities in the coming years using funds from Middle Eastern investors and suggested that TSMC could be contracted to build and manage these plants.
Following the highly publicised launch of ChatGPT, Altman’s profile has fluctuated. In November, he experienced a brief dismissal from OpenAI, only to be reinstated days later amid pushback from staff and investors.
