According to media estimates, Ultraman’s project could be as high as $7 trillion.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seeking to raise trillions of dollars to reshape the global semiconductor industry and has held talks with potential investors, including the government of the United Arab Emirates, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Altman is reportedly looking to solve some of the biggest challenges facing the rapidly expanding field of artificial intelligence, including a lack of expensive computer chips to power large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The global chip industry is currently dominated by a handful of companies, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and US-based NVIDIA (NVIDIA).
While many countries have unveiled plans to support domestic chip production, the financial support they have provided pales in comparison to the huge sums Altman reportedly discussed with investors.
The Wall Street Journal estimates that the total cost of realizing Project Ultraman could be as high as $7 trillion.
That’s about a trillion dollars more than the combined market capitalization of Apple and Microsoft, the world’s two largest public companies.
An OpenAI spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the company had “productive discussions about increasing its global infrastructure and supply chain for chips, energy and data centers.”
They added that given the importance of national priorities, they would “continue to brief the U.S. government.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Altman has held meetings with senior government officials in the United Arab Emirates, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and representatives from TSMC.
Bloomberg and the Financial Times have also reported on some of Altman’s meetings in recent weeks.
The Wall Street Journal said Altman floated the idea of using funds from Middle Eastern investors to build dozens of chip manufacturing plants over the next few years and then paying TSMC for construction and operating costs.
Altman’s fortunes have fluctuated in recent months as he rose to prominence with the widespread release of ChatGPT.
He was briefly fired from the artificial intelligence company in November, only to be rehired days later after a revolt from employees and investors.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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