By Deepa Seetharaman
SAN FRANCISCO -Soon after ChatGPT was released to the public in late 2022, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees they were on the cusp of a new technological revolution.
OpenAI could soon become “the most important company in the history of Silicon Valley,” Altman said, according to two former OpenAI employees who heard his remarks.
There is no shortage of ambition in the U.S. tech industry. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos often speak of transforming the world. Tesla head Elon Musk aims to colonize Mars.
Even by those standards, Altman’s aspirations stand out.
After reaching a deal with Microsoft on Tuesday that removes limits on how OpenAI raises money, Altman laid out even more ambitious plans to build out AI infrastructure to meet growing demand for tools powered by AI.
On a livestream on Tuesday, Altman said OpenAI was committed to developing 30 gigawatts of computing resources for $1.4 trillion. Eventually, he said he would like OpenAI to be able to add 1 gigawatt of compute every week – an astronomical sum given that each gigawatt currently comes with a capital cost of more than $40 billion. Altman said over time, capital costs could halve, without saying how.
“AI is a sport of kings,” said Gil Luria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson. “Altman understands that to compete in AI he will need to achieve a much bigger scale than OpenAI currently operates at.”
But Altman has offered few details on how he might accomplish his biggest ideas.
Altman has previously said OpenAI is exploring a range of creative financing options. OpenAI also has struck a series of unusual, seemingly circular deals with public companies like Nvidia. The transactions have drawn criticism that they create the illusion of more growth than is realistic, raising the specter of an AI bubble.
TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS NEEDED
In January, Altman flew to the White House to announce Stargate, a $500 billion AI infrastructure project the company is working on with Oracle, SoftBank, Nvidia and cloud provider CoreWeave.
Standing next to U.S. President Donald Trump, who he had once criticized as “irresponsible”, Altman said the initiative would create hundreds of thousands of jobs. “We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President,” he said.
At the time, Altman said Stargate would build 10 GW of data center capacity, which has now tripled as per his comments on Tuesday.
Those plans are just the start, Altman said. To support the massive investment, he said, “eventually we need to get to hundreds of billions a year in revenue.”
That would require OpenAI – expected to hit an annual run rate of $20 billion in revenue by year-end – to grow at 10 times its current pace.
PATH TO IPO
ChatGPT sparked the AI craze, forcing Big Tech to spend billions of dollars to keep up. Altman has since steered OpenAI from a nonprofit devoted to AI research to a $500 billion company that is trying to develop AI systems so powerful they could fundamentally alter society.
Altman, who briefly contemplated a run for California governor in 2017, does not hold equity in OpenAI and earns just $76,000 a year from the company. The bulk of his net worth comes from his investments in major tech companies, including Stripe, Airbnb and, more recently, a litany of startups seeking to make money on the AI boom sparked by OpenAI.
Even in his 20s, he was a force. In 2008, Paul Graham, who founded Y Combinator, summed up a then 23-year-old Altman: “You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in five years and he’d be the king.”
Altman, now 40, succeeded Graham as the startup accelerator’s president in 2014.
Tuesday’s restructuring news, along with Altman’s comment that an initial public offering is the most likely path for OpenAI, suggests Altman is readying to finance his grander ambitions.
In pursuit of his goals, Altman has made a few enemies, including billionaire Musk, an OpenAI co-founder and early backer who left the company in 2018.
Musk has sued OpenAI, saying it has digressed from its nonprofit goals of developing AI for humanity. He has also criticized the Stargate project as lacking funding.
This spring, several former OpenAI employees supported Musk’s lawsuit, arguing that Altman could not be trusted to prioritize public safety over profits.
Two years ago, Altman was ousted from OpenAI after falling out with the board. He was reinstated a few days later.
That period will be the subject of a Hollywood movie, “Artificial”, which is scheduled for release next year. Actor Andrew Garfield, who played Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in “The Social Network,” will star as Altman, IMDb says.
(Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman in San Francisco; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Jamie Freed)
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