OpenAI’s Altman teams up with UAE and TSMC for AI chip venture

Seeking partners and funds

According to a report by the Financial Times, Altman is in talks with some of the richest and most influential people in the Middle East, including Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the national security adviser of the UAE and the chairman of several state investment funds and AI companies. Altman is seeking funding for his ambitious new project to develop and fabricate chips designed for training and building AI systems.

Altman is also discussing a possible partnership to produce the chips with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world's largest chipmaker. Neither OpenAI nor TSMC have commented on the matter, and Sheikh Tahnoon could not comment. Bloomberg first reported that Altman was pursuing a chip venture with Middle Eastern investors.

Chips: The key to AI supremacy

The venture is expected to cost billions of dollars, as chip design and development are highly complex and expensive. Altman hopes to challenge Nvidia, the dominant AI chip market player with a market value of nearly $1.5 trillion. Nvidia's GPUs have been the backbone of the AI revolution, as they offer high performance and efficiency for running large-scale neural networks.

However, Nvidia's GPUs are used by OpenAI and many other leading AI companies and researchers, creating fierce competition for the limited supply of chips. OpenAI, which is working on a new version of its flagship AI model, GPT-4, expected to launch this year, is becoming more dependent on its chip partners as its models grow more complex.

It is still being determined whether Altman's chip venture will be a subsidiary of OpenAI or a separate entity. According to sources, OpenAI will be the main customer of the new company, which could give it an edge over its rivals in the AI field.

Altman, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, is known for his bold and visionary ideas. He was briefly ousted as CEO of OpenAI last November after the board accused him of not being honest with them. However, after a backlash from employees and investors, he was reinstated within a week.

Altman's new chip venture is another example of his audacious and ambitious plans to shape the future of AI. Whether he can succeed in taking on Nvidia and creating his chip empire remains to be seen.