Shortages of the specialized computer chips needed to run its artificial intelligence software are holding back OpenAI’s business, and the company has no intention of releasing a consumer-facing product beyond ChatGPT. Those are just two of the disclosures OpenAI cofounder and CEO Sam Altman reportedly made to a group of software developers and startup CEOs at a private meeting in London two weeks ago, according to a blog post written by one of the participants. The account of the closed-door meeting, reportedly attended by about 20 people, was later taken down at OpenAI’s request, according to a note appended to the page where it initially appeared, but that hasn't stopped the A.I. community from poring over the influential CEO's (alleged) comments.
An internet archiving site had already saved a copy of the original blog post, and it has since circulated on social media and several coder-oriented discussion boards. Altman said OpenAI’s inability to access enough graphics processing units (GPUs), the specialized computer chips used to run A.I. applications, is delaying OpenAI’s short-term plans and causing problems for developers using OpenAI’s services, according to the blog post penned by Raza Habib, an A.I. expert who is also the cofounder and CEO of Humanloop. Habib's London-based startup has pioneered methods to make the training of large language models, such as those that underpin OpenAI’s ChatGPT, more efficient.
The shortage of GPUs has made it harder for OpenAI to let users push more data through the large language models that underpin its software, such as ChatGPT, and slowed the company's planned rollout of additional features and services. It has also made OpenAI's existing services slower and less reliable, according to the blog post, a fact that is frustrating customers and making them reluctant to build enterprise applications on top of OpenAI's technology. The chip supply crunch has risked OpenAI's first-mover advantage in the generative A.I. boom, as Google—as well as lesser-known rivals—has been able to roll out competing services, and open-source competitors have gained a greater foothold.
