Tech entrepreneur Sam Altman is reportedly trying to increase between $5 trillion and $7 trillion to assist fund the manufacturing of microchips to extend availability for AI and machine studying, the Wall Road Journal reported on Feb. 8.
The funding could be used to ascertain factories or fund present chip manufacturing firms, with OpenAI solely performing as a “important buyer.” The trouble doesn’t intention to boost cash for Altman’s OpenAI, finest identified for its ChatGPT chatbot and GPT massive language fashions (LLMs).
Sources informed the newspaper that the fundraising might largely be funded by debt and should take a number of years to finish.
Potential traders
To finance the mission, Altman reportedly seeks investments from a largely unknown checklist of traders.
Altman has reportedly mentioned the enterprise with SoftBank, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), and Microsoft, although it’s unclear whether or not these firms may take part as traders or in one other position. Moreover, sources mentioned the UAE has been a part of the talks and will turn out to be a possible investor.
Altman has reportedly met with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to debate the matter, as the federal government should approve such a enterprise. Nonetheless, there are considerations that the involvement of the UAE might be a possible roadblock.
The Journal famous that US lawmakers beforehand urged the Division of Commerce to research Abu Dhabi-based AI agency G42 in January. OpenAI partnered with G42 in October 2023.
Addressing the chip scarcity
The Journal’s report famous that Altman’s fundraising plans “face important obstacles” and “in the end won’t succeed” because the multi-trillion greenback aim is “outlandishly massive.”
In accordance with the newspaper, Altman’s efforts might however handle the broadly acknowledged situation of chip shortages. Nonetheless, the report famous that his funding aim is bigger than most nationwide money owed and sovereign wealth funds — it is usually price greater than all the chip trade as of the top of 2023.
World chip gross sales are price $527 billion yearly and are projected to succeed in $1 trillion by 2030 on the earliest. In the meantime, gross sales of semiconductor manufacturing gear account for an additional $100 billion yearly.
OpenAI has been vocal in regards to the shortages and mentioned in October that it’s contemplating manufacturing its personal chips in-house to resolve the problem. Stories from January instructed that these efforts might see OpenAI elevating $100 billion.
It’s unclear whether or not these plans overlap with the trillion-dollar fundraising initiative reported by the Journal. Different companies have additionally began designing their very own chips, together with Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, albeit with third-party companies dealing with the manufacturing.
