Last winter, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took a whirlwind tour of the Far East, meeting with high-powered execs from companies like TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix, but he didn't make the best first impression. According to a report in the New York Times this week, senior TSMC execs allegedly dubbed the OpenAI chief a “podcasting bro” after the meeting(s) after his absurd requests for 36 new chipmaking plants that would cost an astounding $7 trillion. The NYT claims it discussed OpenAI's negotiations with nine people close to the discussions but who wish to remain anonymous.
Altman used his multi-stop trip to pitch his plans to progress AI, involving Asia's manufacturing muscle, Middle Eastern money, and U.S. regulators. The NYT sources say that the scale of investment would be in trillions of dollars – similar in size to a quarter of U.S. annual output for a year. However, the latest OpenAI statements have rolled back such talk to "mere" hundreds of billions. It is reported that years of construction time would also be needed to satisfy the OpenAI compute scaling plans.
