Following the launch of its groundbreaking AI product, ChatGPT, Sam Altman wants to raise trillions of dollars to reshape the global semiconductor industry.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in talks with investors, including the United Arab Emirates, to raise trillions of dollars in funding aimed at improving global chip manufacturing capacity and better promoting the company's artificial intelligence development, according to a report on Friday.
One of the people said the project could need to raise as much as $5 trillion to $7 trillion.
This scale even dwarfs the size of the global semiconductor industry, which was $527 billion in chip sales last year and is expected to increase to $1 trillion a year by 2030. According to estimates by industry group SEMI, global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales were $100 billion last year.
From the perspective of corporate financing standards, the amount Altman discussed is also very large, larger than the national debt and large sovereign wealth of some major economies, and the total amount of corporate debt issued by the United States last year was about 1$44 trillion.
People familiar with the matter pointed out that Altman suggested that OpenAI, various investors, chipmakers and power ** companies establish a cooperative relationship, they will jointly fund the establishment of a chip foundry, which will then be operated by the existing chip manufacturer, and OpenAI will be a significant customer of the new factory.
Against the backdrop of surging demand for artificial intelligence, there are growing concerns about chips** and the power needed to run them, and AI chip leader Nvidia's chips have been in short supply.
Altman's goal is to solve the various factors that restrict the development of OpenAI, including the scarcity of AI chips to train ChatGPT's large models. Altman often complains that there are not enough GPU chips to support OpenAI's pursuit of artificial general intelligence.