Sam Altman seeks to raise $7 trillion to shake up the AI chip industry

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has a bold vision for the future of artificial intelligence (AI). He wants to massively increase global AI chip production, and is seeking trillions of dollars in funding to do it.

OpenAI founder Sam Altman. (Photo: New York Post)

According to the Wall Street Journal , Altman is in talks with various investors, including the United Arab Emirates government, to launch a project aimed at expanding the world 's chip manufacturing capacity.

He believes that the current supply of AI chips is not enough to meet the needs of AI giants like OpenAI, Alphabet and Metamand, as these companies have been moving towards creating large and powerful language models that can generate text, images, and programming code from human query prompts.

Sam Altman also estimates that it will take $5 trillion to $7 trillion to overhaul the semiconductor industry, which is currently dominated by Nvidia, the leading supplier of graphics processing units (GPUs) for AI applications.

Nvidia's market capitalization has soared to $1.72 trillion by 2023, surpassing tech giants like Amazon and Alphabet. Altman wants to challenge Nvidia's monopoly and create more competition and innovation in the AI chip market.

Additionally, Sam Altman is also said to be seeking billions of dollars for a new chip venture codenamed "Tigris," which he hopes will compete with Nvidia in the future.

Altman’s vision for the future of AI is clear: He wants to build more AI infrastructure, such as factory capacity, energy, data centers, and chips, than anyone is currently planning to build. This, he believes, is crucial for economic competitiveness and advancing the field of artificial intelligence.

Whether Sam Altman can find the trillions to make it happen remains to be seen. Altman’s ambitious plan isn’t without controversy, however. He’s faced some backlash for his previous chip investments. In 2018, he invested in Rain Neuromorphics, a San Francisco-based AI chip startup. In 2019, OpenAI signed a letter of intent to buy Rain Neuromorphics’ chips for $51 million.

However, in December 2020, the US government forced a Saudi-backed venture capital firm to sell its stake in Rain Neuromorphics, citing national security concerns.

HUYNH DUNG (Source: Interestingengineering)

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