Altman globally advocates for "AI infrastructure", with such ambitious goals that Taiwan Semiconductor executives call it "absurd" and Japanese officials "laugh out loud"

Altman plans to raise billions of dollars globally to establish data centers worldwide, allowing artificial intelligence to flow like electricity.

On Saturday, September 28th, The New York Times reported that OpenAI CEO Altman is in discussions with investors from the United Arab Emirates, Asian chip manufacturers, and U.S. officials to enhance the computing power needed to build artificial intelligence. Altman proposed a joint project worth trillions of dollars to establish new chip factories and data centers globally.

OpenAI trains artificial intelligence models with a large amount of data, thus requiring support such as data centers for AI infrastructure. However, currently, AI infrastructure is insufficient, and the power to support data centers is far from enough. Yesterday, Altman stated at the Italian Tech Week that in the coming years, an unparalleled demonstration of nuclear fusion energy will be seen. Jensen Huang also mentioned that nuclear energy as a renewable energy source can provide the required power for an increasing number of data centers.

According to sources cited by The New York Times, OpenAI has outlined a blueprint for the future of global technology, envisioning the establishment of numerous data centers to provide global computing power reserves for building the next generation of artificial intelligence. Despite some reservations from participants and regulatory agencies about certain aspects of the plan, negotiations are ongoing and expanding to Europe and Canada.

While this plan may sound overly ambitious, there are many opposing voices from the outside world. Executives at Taiwan Semiconductor directly called the construction of 36 semiconductor factories "absurd," and Japanese officials chuckled at the idea that a data center would require 5 gigawatts of power. However, this also demonstrates the determination of the tech industry to accelerate development, hoping to eventually achieve a great transformation akin to the Industrial Revolution.

Shortage of Chips and Data Center Supply

According to Altman's plan, they will build data centers in the United Arab Emirates because the UAE has surplus electricity, while the United States faces power shortages. For this plan, OpenAI has already discussed infrastructure funding issues with MGX, an investment institution set up for artificial intelligence in the UAE, and has also met with Taiwan Semiconductor, NVIDIA, and Samsung.

Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, stated in an interview with The New York Times in March that pursuing such a massive deal "makes business sense."

OpenAI's ChatGPT and many other artificial intelligences learn skills by analyzing large amounts of numbers and data, but the current supply of chips and data centers driving this process is insufficient, and the power supporting the operation of data centers is also far from enough. If the supply increases, OpenAI believes they can build more powerful artificial intelligence systems. In dozens of meetings, OpenAI executives have been urging tech companies and investors to enhance global computing power.

Daniel Newman, CEO of the technology research company Futurum Group, stated: "Altman is considering how to keep OpenAI relevant. It needs more computing power, more connectivity, and more energy." So, how to solve the problem of chip and data center shortages?

Altman's original plan was for the UAE to invest in building multiple chip manufacturing plants, which NVIDIA would then use to produce more AI chips. Finally, OpenAI and other companies would use these AI chips to build artificial intelligence data centers. In Altman's plan, the cost of building each chip manufacturing plant is as high as $43 billion. However, this plan will reduce the cost of chip manufacturing for companies like Taiwan Semiconductor.

However, data centers require a large amount of electricity, so what can be done about this?

Altman considered using electricity from Japanese nuclear power plants and explored the feasibility of using offshore wind turbines. Overall, nuclear energy as a renewable energy source is a better choice.

In private conversations, Altman likened data centers worldwide to electricity. As electricity became more widespread, people found better ways to utilize it. Altman hopes to do the same with data centers, ultimately bringing artificial intelligence technology into every household.

Absurd Plan?

Altman began fundraising for this project last year and visited the headquarters of Taiwan Semiconductor. Altman told executives at Taiwan Semiconductor that building 36 semiconductor factories and additional data centers to achieve his vision would require $7 trillion and many years.

Executives at Taiwan Semiconductor found this idea absurd because just adding a few chip manufacturing plants involves extremely high risks, let alone 36.

Taiwan Semiconductor spokesperson Will Moss stated that the company is willing to discuss expanding semiconductor development, but the company is currently focused on its global expansion projects and has "no new investment plans to disclose."

Around the same time, Altman visited South Korea and held talks with chip manufacturers Samsung and SK Hynix.

This spring, OpenAI held a meeting with Japanese officials in Tokyo. A plan was proposed at the meeting to use retired nuclear power plants from the 2011 Fukushima disaster to generate electricity to support the construction of data centers. During the meeting, OpenAI stated the need for 5 gigawatts of power, to which a Japanese official laughed, as this is approximately 1000 times the power consumption of a typical data center.

Subsequently, in a meeting with German officials, OpenAI explored the possibility of building data centers in the North Sea to utilize 7 gigawatts of electricity from offshore wind turbines.

First Step in "Going Global": OpenAI Decides to Build Data Centers in the United States

Clearly, Altman's quest for trillion-dollar investments has faced obstacles.

First, a trillion dollars is equivalent to a quarter of the annual economic output of the United States, and many people mock his absurdity; second, U.S. officials are concerned that OpenAI's attempt to build critical technology in the Middle East could pose technical security issues; finally, to build artificial intelligence infrastructure in multiple countries, OpenAI needs approval from U.S. officials responsible for export controls.

Since then, Altman has scaled down his plan to hundreds of billions of dollars, and OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois stated: "We have never considered a trillion-dollar project, although the construction cost of global artificial intelligence infrastructure could reach tens of trillions of dollars over several decades, the specific scale OpenAI is exploring is in the hundreds of billions of dollars Meanwhile, OpenAI has formulated a new strategy: firstly, to build data centers in the United States to attract U.S. government officials.

In a statement, OpenAI stated that it is focusing on building infrastructure in the U.S., "with the goal of ensuring that the U.S. maintains its global leadership in innovation, promotes nationwide reindustrialization, and ensures the widespread availability of the benefits of artificial intelligence."

During a White House meeting this month with other technology leaders, Altman submitted a research report from OpenAI titled "Infrastructure is Destiny," which calls for the construction of new data centers in the U.S., with each data center costing $100 billion - roughly 20 times the cost of the most powerful data center construction today, with the data centers accommodating 2 million AI chips and consuming 5 gigawatts of power.

OpenAI's leadership informed White House officials that AI data centers will serve as a catalyst for reindustrialization in the U.S., creating up to 500,000 job opportunities.

Last week, at an investor event for T-Mobile, Altman spoke humbly about the company's ambitions:

"We are building on a massive foundation of previous work, and if you think about everything that needs to happen in human history to discover semiconductors, manufacture chips, build networks, and these giant data centers, we are just doing our small part at the top of all of this."

Furthermore, OpenAI is also attempting to form a loose alliance of companies, including data center builders like Microsoft, investors, and chip manufacturers. However, details such as who will provide funding, who will benefit, and what kind of infrastructure they will build are still unclear