OpenAI needs $7 trillion to build artificial intelligence chips

OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, has grown into one of the largest companies at the forefront of AI since the launch of ChatGPT. Now, apparently, the founder of this company is looking for a new ambition and is looking for major investment from different investors to develop the artificial intelligence chip.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Altman is looking to launch a new AI initiative that will focus more on the hardware side, including custom chips for AI. According to this report, OpenAI's CEO is in talks with various investors, including the UAE government, to finance his program, and apparently up to 7 trillion dollars needs.

Altman's plan aims to address current industry problems, including the shortage of artificial intelligence chips needed to train large language models (LLM). However, the capital requirements of this program are significantly higher than the total sales of the semiconductor industry.

The company's spokesperson provided the following statement to the Wall Street Journal:

“OpenAI has had constructive discussions about increasing the global infrastructure and supply chains for chips, energy and data centers that are critical to AI and other industries that rely on them.”

Altman has proposed that various actors, including investors, chip companies, utilities and others, work together to build the dedicated chip foundries needed to produce next-generation AI hardware. He also said that OpenAI would be a big customer for these chips, but the discussion between them is still in its early stages.

In the past weeks, Altman has met with Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, National Security Adviser of the UAE, Masayoshi Sun, CEO of Softbank and representatives of TSMC. Microsoft, which has already invested heavily in OpenAI, is also aware of the company's fundraising efforts, and Altman has reportedly discussed his plans with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CTO Kevin Scott.