Why does OpenAI boss Sam Altman want to raise $7 trillion for semiconductor factories? – Exemption

7 trillion dollars. 1,000 more than the combined stock market value of the most valuable companies, Apple and Microsoft. And more than twice the GDP of France. That’s a staggering amount for a project by Sam Altman, director of OpenAI, who is leading a massive initiative to build semiconductor factories, according to estimates gathered. The Wall Street Journal. The tech honcho has already spoken to potential investors.

The boss of a company specializing in AI may have told several players in the sector the idea of ​​building dozens of chip manufacturing factories in the coming years, to overcome shortages affecting the technology. Because without semiconductors, there is no artificial intelligence. The problem: cars, televisions, coffee makers, this technology is everywhere, and in great numbers. So much so that the sector is already struggling to keep up and power all the relevant equipment. All this while the amount of data required to train sophisticated AI systems is growing exponentially – and thus requiring more and more advanced semiconductors.

Discussions will focus more broadly on “Around the development of global infrastructure and supply chains for chips, energy and data centers“, according to a company spokesperson interviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Among Altman’s interlocutors are investors, such as senior representatives of the government of the United Arab Emirates or the general director of the Japanese group Softbank, Masayoshi Son. But also industry representatives, including Taiwan giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The Wall Street Journal.

AI is as greedy as it is attractive

Funding from investors in the Middle East will lead to the establishment of new factories and their management by TSMC, without OpenAI necessarily finding itself at the center of the equation. So what’s in it for Altman? Allow the company at the helm of ChatGPT to overcome some of the current barriers in the industry. This initiative will boost the already growing artificial intelligence sector by solving the shortage of computer chips. In 2023, generative AI represented 42 billion euros in global turnover in 2023, double that of 2022. Chip sales will represent 527 billion dollars in 2023 and should reach 1,000 billion annually by 2030.

Some countries have unveiled plans to support the production of chips on their territory, such as China and its 30 billion injected into Huawei to build semiconductor factories in 2023. An almost modest investment compared to what Altman envisioned. For the moment, the industry is largely dominated by a few companies, such as TSMC and the American Nvidia, which have a very juicy market that new competitors are struggling to enter. A situation which the Competition Authority did not fail to address.

Artificial intelligence is credited by many with revolutionizing the internet. Generative AI makes it possible to produce texts, lines of code, images and sounds in everyday language on simple request. And like the Internet before it, misused, it is a cause for concern: a threat to some jobs, deepfakes of a sexual nature, misinformation – especially during elections.