Sam Altman has big, big plans to put AI at the center of every industry

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reported to be trying to raise between $5 trillion and $7 trillion in funding, an inordinate amount that far exceeds usual funding rounds, larger than many sovereign wealth funds, and more than the combined value of the world’s two largest companies, Apple and Microsoft. Altman is approaching investors around the world to join a hugely ambitious pla involving multiple players.

What does Altman intend to do with all this money? Quite simply: increase the production capacity of chips for the development of artificial intelligence, and free the biggest bottleneck for the development of the industry and the application of AI at all levels and in all industries. Altman’s plans are so ambitious that he has had to meet with the Secretary of State for Commerce, Gina Raimondo, to lay out his plans.

AI is the technology of the moment: with OpenAI already turning over more than $2 billion, and with all projects seeking funding including AI in their presentations to prospective investors, the technology is a game changer for all technology companies, which are forced not only to offer it to maintain their position in the market.

The development of much more chips for algorithm training and inference tasks would also change the industry’s power equation, in which a single company, Nvidia, which has positioned itself in the right place at the right time, has become the leader, multiplying its value spectacularly. I found The Wall Street Journal’s video on AI chips, their importance and their use, particularly instructive.

For OpenAI, the prospect of a chip industry with much more supply and in the hands of more players is a better scenario than depending, at least for a long time, on just one company. Hence Sam Altman’s initiative, who, far from remaining at one point in the value chain, is trying to influence all those who can determine not only the development of AI, but much more importantly, the spread of its use throughout all industries.

(En español, aquí)