Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has been looking to raise billions of dollars from global investors to set up a network of factories that will manufacture semiconductors. Several individuals with knowledge of the plans have confirmed this to Bloomberg.
Sources tell Altman has been in discussions with several major investors to secure the funds to build chip fabrication plants, also known as fabs. The report suggests that the project is expected to involve collaborations with leading chip manufacturers, and the network of fabs would have a global reach.
According to Bloomberg, some of the firms that have held discussions with the OpenAI boss include Abu Dhabi based G42 and SoftBank Group Corp. Altman has also held discussions with top chip manufacturers. .However, the talks are still in their early stages, and a full list of partners and funders involved has not been established yet.
OpenAI was previously in talks to raise $8 billion to $10 billion with G42, but the current status of those discussions is unknown.
Altman is leading a fundraising effort for OpenAI due to concerns about a shortage of AI chips. OpenAI is focused on building and maintaining its own fabs, which is more expensive than the approach taken by its competitors, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Building a single state-of-the-art fabrication plant can cost tens of billions of dollars, and creating a network of such facilities would take several years.
The talks are still in their early stages, and a full list of partners and funders involved has not been established yet.
Altman was working on the chips project until he was briefly removed as OpenAI CEO in November. Upon his return, he continued the project and discussed it with Microsoft, which is interested, according to the report.
