Here at Portmac.News we like big numbers & $US7 trillion (A$10.7 trillion) is a BIG number ! 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly eyes $US7 trillion bid to reshape the global artificial intelligence race

No-one's ever raised $US7 trillion (A$10.7 trillion) for a single project before, but OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman might be about to give it a go. 

To put the figure in perspective, Australia's GDP last year was $US1.3 trillion and the entire Afghanistan war cost America a messerly $US2 trillion ($3.1 trillion).

So what would Sam Altman want with $US7 trillion?

Only to remake the global computer chip industry.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Altman has been in talks with several investors, including the United Arab Emirates, as part of an enormously ambitious bid to boost the supply chain for crucial chips known as graphics processing units (GPU).

GPUs are the hardware currently paving the way to the all-important goal of artificial general intelligence (AGI) — AI that exceeds human capabilities across the board. 

They're so significant that future access to GPUs is seen as a decisive factor in the ongoing arm wrestle between China and the US for global tech dominance.

The geopolitical contest over GPUs has been laid bare in recent years with the emergence of a cat-and-mouse game of export bans between the White House and the leading US chip manufacturer, Nvidia.

As Nvidia has developed new GPUs for the Chinese market, the US has banned them each time, in a semi-successful effort to slow China's progress on AI and other key technologies.

The US, on the other hand, is heavily dependent on chip manufacturers in neighbouring Taiwan.

GPUs are currently the most likely path to AI that exceeds humans, but they're not the only one.

Several major tech companies are working on their own alternatives, but even those are likely to rely on components that are currently manufactured offshore.

For now, neither country has achieved supply chain independence when it comes to AI chips — but they're both working on it.

Why does Sam Altman need all those AI chips?

He doesn't, and nor does his company.

The details of the initiative are scarce for now, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting the funds would be used to dramatically boost capacity for the entire tech industry — or at least, the US-aligned side of it.

Mr Altman is believed to be trying to broker a partnership between OpenAI, various investors, and chip makers, to co-fund new factories building GPU components known as semiconductors.

OpenAI would be just one customer.

Among the prospective backers are the Japanese investment giant Softbank and the already pivotal Taiwanese manufacturer TSMC, as well as the UAE government.

TSMC already makes most of the world's semiconductors, and has previously been described as Taiwan's "Silicon Shield", and the reason the global West has such an intense interest in Taiwan's independence from China.

From what we know, which is still not much, Mr Altman's proposal could be America's long-awaited play for supply chain independence in computer chips — assuming he can pull it off.

A glitch in the rumour mill, or the biggest fundraising play in corporate history?

Whether or not the reports turn out to be completely accurate, the problem such a plan would seek to solve is very real.

Despite the lack of official confirmation, neither Altman nor OpenAI has moved to explicitly kill the story in almost a week.

Last Thursday, on the same day the story broke, Mr Altman posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), saying "we believe the world needs more ai infrastructure... than people are currently planning to build. building massive-scale ai infrastructure, and a resilient supply chain, is crucial to economic competitiveness. openai will try to help!"

On the weekend, he tweeted "i don't really know that much about this rumored compute thing"  but also made offhand contributions to other people's posts on the topic, actively contributing to speculation in the process. 

Mr Altman's X activity in the days since the story broke has been unusual enough to prompt one user to reply: "blink twice if your account has been hacked".

OpenAI is yet to respond to a request for comment, but in a statement to the Wall Street Journal, it said: "OpenAI has had productive discussions about increasing global infrastructure and supply chains for chips, energy and data centres — which are crucial for AI and other industries that rely on them." 

"We will continue to keep the US government informed given the importance to national priorities, and look forward to sharing more details at a later date."

Original Story By | Ange Lavoipierre