OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company plans to invest "trillions of dollars" in building infrastructure for artificial intelligence. He made the announcement during an informal meeting with reporters, noting that data center construction costs could reach such a scale in the "not too distant future."
According to Bloomberg, Altman admitted that new financial mechanisms are needed to implement this plan. According to him, OpenAI is working on creating a new financial instrument that will allow it to raise funds for computing power. He does not rule out that the company will go public in the future, although he did not specify the exact timing.
In January, Altman, along with Masayoshi Son (SoftBank) and Larry Ellison (Oracle), announced the launch of the Stargate project, a four-year infrastructure initiative worth $500 billion. However, he is now talking about significantly larger investments than Stargate envisaged.
Altman compared the current AI investment frenzy to the "dot-com bubble" of the 1990s. He believes that in both cases, "smart people" were overly enthusiastic about new technologies, but these technologies were "real" and had a long-term impact. Altman acknowledged that the current valuations of some startups are "irrational" and "crazy," and warned that someone will "burn out." At the same time, he is convinced that society will not regret large-scale investments in AI.
Sam Altman has been one of the main drivers of investor interest in artificial intelligence. When OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, it caused a real boom: technology companies and startups began to invest billions in specialists, chips and data centers to create similar products. Now the head of OpenAI says that although the company will spend a lot of money on infrastructure development, he is convinced that over time it will bring OpenAI huge profits.
Altman also confirmed that OpenAI is considering acquiring the Chrome browser if Google is forced to sell it, and that he plans to invest in Merge Labs, a brain implant company.