OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly in pursuit of a staggering investment of up to $7 trillion

Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, is looking to generate trillions of dollars in investments to overhaul the global semiconductor industry, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Altman views the shortage of AI chips – though in demand, there aren’t enough available – as an impediment to OpenAI’s expansion.

In response to this, he’s considering a project that would boost global chip-building capacity and is in talks with various investors, including the United Arab Emirates government. For this project, Altman may need to raise between $5 trillion and $7 trillion, according to The Wall Street Journal, though this figure was not verified by CNBC. OpenAI did not comment on the matter.

Altman stated on his blog that OpenAI believes the world requires more AI infrastructure, such as fabrication capacity, energy, data centres and more, than is currently being planned. He emphasised the importance of building large-scale AI infrastructure and maintaining a secure supply chain for economic competitiveness.

This comes in the wake of controversies around Altman’s previous chip-related ventures and investments. Before his short-lived removal as OpenAI CEO, he was reportedly sourcing billions in funding for a new chip venture named “Tigris”, aimed at rivalling Nvidia. Furthermore, Altman invested in AI chip start-up, Rain Neuromorphics, in 2018 and OpenAI intended to spend $51 million on Rain’s chips in 2019.

In the past year’s AI boom, Nvidia has emerged profitable with its market cap more than tripling in 2023. Nvidia’s GPUs power the large language models developed by companies like OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, and a slew of well-funded start-ups. Currently, Nvidia controls roughly 80% of the AI chip market and poses a potential threat to tech giants like Amazon and Alphabet.

When OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, the company had limited GPU resources and capacity but still managed to establish its position as a tool builder for developers and businesses. Altman championed the launch of the now-popular ChatGPT bot, which exemplified the importance of text-based interactions with the models.

ChatGPT, which boasts over 100 million active users weekly and is utilised by over 92% of Fortune 500 companies, was the fastest-growing consumer app at the time, demonstrating the success of Altman’s approach.

Last November saw OpenAI’s board dismiss Alsman, leading to a multitude of resignations and outrage from investors, resulting in his return within a week. Since then, OpenAI has announced its new board, including former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO, Adam D’Angelo, with Microsoft holding a non-voting observer position. The company plans to add additional seats to its board.