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ultraman is very ambitious

core tips:

1. openai hopes to build massive data centers and establish computing power reserves around the world to build the next generation of ai.

2. ultraman's plan requires spending 7 trillion us dollars (about 4.9 trillion rmb) to build 36 semiconductor factories.

3. ultraman then reduced the financing scale to hundreds of billions of dollars, focusing first on the united states.

4. the united states and south korea are concerned about national security issues.

late last year, openai ceo sam altman began pitching a bold plan that he hoped would generate the computing power his company needed to develop more powerful artificial intelligence (ai).

to that end, he has traveled around the world, meeting with emirati investors, asian computer chip makers and u.s. officials, suggesting that they join forces to invest trillions of dollars to build new computer chip factories and data centers around the world, including in the middle east.while some players and regulators have balked at parts of the plan, talks have continued and expanded to europe and canada.

according to nine people familiar with the matter who spoke to the new york times, openai's blueprint for the future of world technology aims to build a global reserve of computing power by constructing massive data centers to build the next generation of ai.

while the plan may sound far-fetched, altman’s actions show how he became one of the world’s most influential technology executives in just a few years. in just a few weeks, he managed to attract the attention of middle eastern money, asian manufacturing giants and senior u.s. regulators.

this also proves the determination of the technology industry to accelerate the development of ai technology.in their view, ai could be as transformative as the industrial revolution.

ultraman hopes to expand chip manufacturing to support ai development

when news broke that altman, 39, was seeking trillions of dollars in investment, he was ridiculed for roughly a quarter of the u.s.’s annual economic output. officials in washington have also expressed concern about an american company trying to develop critical technology in the middle east. to build ai infrastructure in numerous countries, american companies need approval from u.s. officials in charge of export controls.

$7 trillion, 36 factories

altman visited tsmc’s headquarters in taiwan shortly after launching the financing project and told tsmc executives that it would take $7 trillion and many years to build 36 semiconductor factories and additional data centers to realize his vision, according to two people familiar with the matter.in taiwan, altman got his first tour of a multibillion-dollar chip manufacturing plant.

tsmc executives thought the idea was so ridiculous that they began calling altman "podcast brother" (referring to altman's bragging). let alone 36, even adding a few more chip manufacturing plants would be extremely risky because of the huge amount of money involved.

"we are not and have never considered trillion-dollar projects. while the total investment required for global ai infrastructure may reach trillions of dollars over decades, openai is specifically exploring a scale of hundreds of billions of dollars," said liz bourgeois, a spokesperson for openai.

reduce the size of financing

altman has since scaled back his fundraising ambitions to hundreds of billions of dollars and developed a new strategy: first help build data centers in the united states to attract support from u.s. government officials, nine people familiar with the matter said.

it’s not clear how all this will work. openai is trying to put together a loose alliance of companies, including data center builders like microsoft as well as investors and chipmakers. but the details of who will pay, who will benefit and what will be built remain unclear.

ultraman

at the same time, openai is also independently negotiating another financing, hoping to raise $6.5 billion to support its own business, a deal that would value the startup at $150 billion. three people familiar with the matter said that uae technology investment company mgx is one of the potential investors, and other potential investors include microsoft, nvidia, apple and tiger global fund.

openai is raising money because its costs far exceed its revenues: openai has more than $3 billion in sales per year, but spends about $7 billion.

computing power is as widespread as electricity

according to three people familiar with the matter, in private conversations, altman once compared the world's data centers to electricity. as electricity becomes more popular, people find better ways to use it. altman hopes that data centers will become as popular as electricity, and eventually make ai technology flow like electricity.

chatbots like openai's chatgpt learn their skills by analyzing large amounts of digital data, but the chips and data centers that drive this process are still in short supply. openai believes it can build more powerful ai systems if the supply of computing power grows.

openai executives have urged technology companies and investors in numerous meetings to expand global computing power, according to people familiar with the matter.

“altman is thinking about how to maintain openai’s influence,” said daniel newman, ceo of technology research firm futurum group. “it requires more computing power, more connectivity and more electricity.”

altman's original plan was for the uae to finance the construction of multiple chip manufacturing plants, each of which could cost up to $43 billion. the plan would reduce chip manufacturing costs for companies such as tsmc.

nvidia is currently the market leader in ai chips, and its chips are manufactured by tsmc. altman's plan would increase the production of nvidia chips, which would then allow openai and other companies to use them in more ai data centers.

jen-hsun huang

altman and his colleagues discussed building data centers in the united arab emirates, which has a surplus of electricity. in the united states, it is difficult for companies to build new data centers because there is not enough electricity to power them.

openai has discussed funding infrastructure plans with mgx, the united arab emirates’ dedicated ai investment vehicle, and omar sultan al olama, the uae’s minister of state for ai, told the new york times in march that there was “a business case” for pursuing such a large deal.

openai said in a statement that it is focused on building infrastructure in the united states.“the goal is to ensure that america remains a global leader in innovation, drive the reindustrialization of the country, and ensure that the benefits of ai are widely accessible.”

will moss, a spokesman for tsmc, said the company is open to discussions about expanding its semiconductor manufacturing operations but is currently focused on current global expansion projects and "has no new investment plans to disclose at this time."

regulatory concerns

altman also visited south korea and held talks with two of the country's chipmakers, samsung and sk hynix. however, he soon ran into national security concerns. since many countries believe that ai will be crucial to the economy and warfare in the future, south korea is worried that the uae will play too big a role in it.

some u.s. government officials and congressional leaders also worry that approving the construction of chip infrastructure in the uae would benefit other countries.

still, openai’s talks with the commerce department, the united arab emirates and chipmakers are ongoing, and it has expanded its discussions to other regions, according to four people familiar with the matter.

this spring, openai executives met with japanese officials in tokyo and developed a plan to build data centers powered by nuclear power plants that were decommissioned after the 2011 fukushima disaster.

in one meeting, a japanese official laughed when openai said it was seeking 5 gigawatts of power, a person familiar with the matter said, because that is about 1,000 times the power used by a typical data center.

tsmc hsinchu factory

later, openai also met with german officials to explore building a data center in the north sea so that it could take advantage of 7 gigawatts of power provided by offshore wind turbines.

however, political pressure has forced openai to explore other options in the u.s. at a white house meeting with other tech leaders this month, altman presented an openai study called “infrastructure destiny.”

the study calls for new data centers in the united states that would cost $100 billion to build each, about 20 times the cost of today’s most powerful data centers, house 2 million ai chips and consume 5 gigawatts of electricity, two people familiar with the matter said.

altman spoke while sitting in front of a portrait of former us president roosevelt, who invested heavily in large infrastructure projects such as the lincoln tunnel in new york. altman told us commerce secretary raimondo, national security advisor sullivan and other us officials that ai data centers will become a catalyst for the re-industrialization of the united states, creating up to 500,000 jobs.

this week, president biden and uae president mohammed met at the white house and instructed senior officials from both countries to develop a memorandum detailing future cooperation in the field of ai.

to bolster its lobbying efforts, openai hired chris lehane, a former white house lawyer during the clinton administration, as its vice president of global policy and hired two commerce department officials who worked on the chips act, a bipartisan law aimed at increasing domestic chip manufacturing in the united states, one of whom will oversee future infrastructure projects and policy management.

last week, at an investor event hosted by openai client t-mobile, altman struck a humble tone when discussing the company’s ambitions.

“we’re building on a lot of work that’s been done before us,” altman said. “if you look at everything that’s happened in human history, from the discovery of semiconductors to the production of chips to the construction of networks to the construction of these large data centers, we’ve only done a small part of that.”

as of press time, nvidia declined to comment. mgx and samsung did not respond to requests for comment. (author/xiao yu)

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