The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a source, that Altman may need to raise $5 trillion to $7 trillion for the effort. CNBC could not confirm the number. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.
On Wednesday, Altman posted on X that OpenAI believes “the world needs more AI infrastructure (fab capacity, energy, data centers, etc.) than people are currently planning to build.” did. He added that “building large-scale AI infrastructure and resilient supply chains is critical to economic competitiveness” and that OpenAI is committed to supporting this.
The news follows controversy surrounding some of Altman’s previous chip efforts and investments.
Shortly before Altman was briefly ousted as CEO of OpenAI, he ended up spending billions of dollars to buy a yet-to-be-founded chip venture codenamed Tigris that would compete with NVIDIA. He was reportedly traveling to the Middle East to raise funds from investors.
In 2018, Altman personally invested in an AI chip startup called Rain Neuromorphics, based near OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters, and in 2019, OpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $51 million on Rain’s chips. did. In December, the US forced a Saudi Aramco-backed venture capital firm to sell its stake in Reign.
Nvidia has made a lot of money from the generative AI boom over the past year, more than tripling its market capitalization in 2023. The company’s graphics processing units (GPUs) power large language models created by OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, and a growing number of technologies. All the highly funded startups are vying for a piece of the generative AI pie.
Nvidia currently controls about 80% of the AI chip market with a market capitalization of about $1.72 trillion, and it won’t be long before it overtakes big tech companies like Amazon and Alphabet in market capitalization. Perhaps Mr. Altman is trying to change that.
When OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched in November 2022, the company had a limited number and capacity of GPUs and primarily saw itself as a company building tools for developers and enterprises, OpenAI said. Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap told CNBC last November. When it came time to release his now-viral ChatGPT bot, Lightcap recalled that Altman was a big proponent of “trying it out.” His theory was that there was something important and personal about text-based interactions with models.
The move paid off. According to OpenAI, ChatGPT broke the record at the time as the fastest-growing consumer app of all time, and now has over 100 million weekly active users and over 92% of Fortune 500 companies. I’m using this platform.
Last November, OpenAI’s board fired Altman, prompting his resignation or threat of resignation, which included an open letter signed by nearly all OpenAI employees, and an uproar from investors including Microsoft. Within a week, Altman was back at work. Since then, OpenAI has announced new board members, including former Salesforce co-CEO Brett Taylor, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Quora CEO Adam DiAngelo. Microsoft received a non-voting board observer position, and the company plans to add more seats.
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