Altman has discussed “wildly ambitious” plans with investors, including the United Arab Emirates government, the WSJ says.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seeking to raise trillions of dollars from investors, including the United Arab Emirates government, to boost the world's ability to produce advanced chips and boost artificial intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Altman's “wildly ambitious technology initiative” could require raising up to $7 trillion, the WSJ reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
As part of his pitch to investors, Altman proposed building dozens of chip foundries that would then be run by existing chip makers, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the Journal said.
The plans aim to resolve obstacles to OpenAI's growth, including a shortage of chips that power AI models like ChatGPT, according to the WSJ, which described the requested sums as “strangely large by corporate fundraising standards.”
So far, Altamn's plans have led him to hold meetings with senior UAE officials, TSMC executives, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, according to the report. .
While numerous countries have announced plans to support domestic semiconductor production, global supply is still dominated by a handful of companies, including California-based Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and NVIDIA.
The WSJ quoted an OpenAI spokesperson as saying it has had “productive discussions about scaling up global infrastructure and supply chains” and would share more details at a later date.
OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment from Al Jazeera.
At the helm of OpenAI, Altman has become one of the most recognizable faces in the burgeoning field of AI.
In November, the 38-year-old entrepreneur was fired from the startup he co-founded, but was reinstated several days later after protests from employees and investors.
