OpenAI CEO Sam Altman branded "podcasting bro" for his reportedly absurd plan to "take $7 trillion and many years to build 36 semiconductor plants and additional data centers" to fulfill his ambitious AI vision

Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023.

What you need to know

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly pitched an "audacious plan" to the United Arab Emirates to address AI's computing power and GPU needs.
• The plan involves $7 trillion in funding from investors to build 36 semiconductor plants and additional data centers.
• An OpenAI spokesman refuted the claims, indicating the AI firm wasn't exploring multi-trillion-dollar projects. 

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While Generative AI allows significant tech corporations like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google to tap into new and unexplored opportunities, it demands a ridiculous computing power and cooling water. Reports indicate that the world could be on the brink of the most significant technological breakthrough with AI, but there won't be enough electricity to power its advances by 2025.

Google and Microsoft consume more electricity than 100 countries to power their AI advances. Last year, we learned that Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT use up to 1 bottle of water for cooling per query. Recent research by the University of California further built on this premise, revealing that OpenAI's GPT-4 model (often considered mildly embarrassing at best) consumes up to three water bottles to generate a mere 100 words.

OpenAI and Microsoft have openly highlighted their plans to address some of the issues preventing further advancement in AI, including investing $100 billion in a new project dubbed Stargate to free themselves from an overreliance on NVIDIA for AI chips. Microsoft recently partnered with BlackRock to raise $100 billion to 'emancipate themselves from the shackles' of insufficient power and increase data centers for their ambitious AI dreams.

Next-gen AI projects could cost an arm and a leg

Cooling system for a data center processing AI (Image credit: Getty Images | halbergman)

Aside from looking at nuclear fusion as an alternative power source for AI advances, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reportedly been curating an "audacious plan" to address the firm's computing power needs (via The New York Times). These plans are closely tied to investors in the United Arab Emirates and chip makers in Asia.

According to sources with knowledge of Altman's ambitions, he reportedly pitched a multitrillion-dollar plan to investors, which would help build chip fabs and data centers worldwide. These plans would set OpenAI in a unique position to push its AI advances to the next level with unlimited computing power. As you may know, investors in the AI landscape recently raised concern over Microsoft's spending on AI efforts after its latest earnings call, citing difficulty in establishing a clear path to profitability in the category.

Interesting;y, market analysts and experts claim OpenAI's reported bankruptcy claims in the next few months, with projections of $5 billion losses, are part of any startup's growing curve. With Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Apple lining up to participate in the ChatGPT maker's latest round of funding, pushing its market capitalization to over $150 billion, OpenAI could become the world's dominant AI company, given its unique enterprise and consumer position.

As part of Sam Altman's plan to develop next-gen AI models, he'd require the United Arab Emirates to fund his ambitions by building multiple chip-making plants worldwide that cost up to $43 billion each. This plan would allow chipmakers like NVIDIA to meet the high demand for AI chips, especially in the Emirates, which has access to electrical power.

To put Altman's plans into perspective, he told TSMC executives that it would "take $7 trillion and many years to build 36 semiconductor plants and additional data centers to fulfill his vision." According to a TMSC spokesman, the company is open to discussing expanding semiconductor development. However, it's more concerned about its current global expansion projects.

TSMC execs reportedly found Altman's ambitions for AI absurd, branding him a "podcasting bro." An OpenAI spokesman responded to the claims that OpenAI pitches multi-trillion-dollar projects by refuting them and indicating that the firm isn't considering following that path for its AI ventures. What OpenAI is specifically exploring is on the scale of hundreds of billions," the spokesman added. 

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