Behind OpenAI’s Audacious Plan to Make AI Flow Like Electricity

Cade Metz and Tripp Mickle

Late last year, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, started pitching an audacious plan that he hoped would create the computing power his company needed to build more powerful artificial intelligence.

In meetings with investors in the United Arab Emirates, computer chip makers in Asia and officials in Washington, he proposed that they unite on a multitrillion-dollar effort to erect new computer chip factories and data centers across the globe, including in the Middle East. Though some participants and regulators balked at parts of the plan, the talks have continued and expanded into Europe and Canada.

OpenAIs blueprint for the worlds technology future, which was described to The New York Times by nine people close to the companys discussions, would create countless data centers providing a global reservoir of computing power dedicated to building the next generation of AI.

As far-fetched as it may have seemed, Altmans campaign showed how in just a few years he has become one of the worlds most influential tech executives, able in a span of weeks to gain an audience with Middle Eastern money, Asian manufacturing giants and top U.S. regulators.

It was also a demonstration of the tech industrys determination to accelerate the development of a technology it claims could be as transformative as the Industrial Revolution.

When word leaked that Altman, 39, was looking for trillions of dollars, he was mocked for seeking investments equivalent to roughly a quarter of the annual economic output of the United States. Officials in Washington also expressed concerns that a U.S. company was trying to build vital technology in the Middle East. To build AI infrastructure in a number of countries, U.S. companies would need approval from U.S. officials who oversee export controls.

Altman has since scaled his ambition down to hundreds of billions of dollars, the nine people said, and hatched a new strategy: Court U.S. government officials by first helping to build data centers in the United States. It is still unclear how all this would work. OpenAI has tried to assemble a loose federation of companies, including data center builders like Microsoft as well as investors and chipmakers. But the particulars of who would pay the money, who would get it and what they would even build are hazy.

At the same time, OpenAI has been in separate talks to raise $6.5 billion to support its own business, a deal that would value the startup at $150 billion. The UAEs technology investment firm, MGX, is among the group of potential investors, which also includes Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple and Tiger Global, three people familiar with the conversations said.

OpenAI is seeking cash because its costs far outpace its revenue, the three people said. It annually collects more than $3 billion in sales while spending about $7 billion. Some of OpenAIs plans have been previously reported by Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Conversations with the nine people close to the talks, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, provide a fuller picture of the efforts and how the strategy has evolved.

(The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December for copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems.)

In private conversations, Altman has compared the worlds data centers with electricity, according to three people close to the discussions. As the availability of electricity became more widespread, people found better ways of using it. Altman hoped to do the same with data centers and eventually make AI technologies flow like electricity.

Chatbots like OpenAI_s ChatGPT learn their skills by analyzing troves of digital data. But there is a shortage of the chips and data centers that drive this process. If that supply grows, OpenAI believes it can build more powerful AI systems.

In dozens of meetings, OpenAI executives have prodded tech companies and investors to expand global computing power, the nine people close to the company_s discussions said.

Sam is thinking about how OpenAI remains relevant, said Daniel Newman, CEO of the Futurum Group, a tech research firm. _It needs more compute, more connectivity, more power.

Altmans original plan called for the UAE to fund the construction of multiple chipmaking plants, which can cost as much as $43 billion each. The plan would reduce chip manufacturing costs for companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world_s largest chip producer. TSMC makes semiconductors for Nvidia, the leading developer of AI chips. The plan would allow Nvidia to churn out more chips. OpenAI and other companies would use those chips in more AI data centers.

Altman and his colleagues discussed building the data centers in the UAE, a nation with excess electrical power. In the United States, it has been hard for companies to build new data centers because there is not enough electrical power to run them.

OpenAI discussed funding the infrastructure plan with MGX, an AI-focused investment vehicle created by the UAE. It also met with TSMC, Nvidia and another chip company, Samsung.

Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAEs minister of state for AI, told the Times in a March interview that there is a business case_ for going after such a giant deal.

Nvidia declined to comment. MGX and Samsung did not respond to requests for comment. OpenAI said in a statement that it was focused on building infrastructure in the United States with the goals of ensuring the U.S. remains the global leader in innovation, driving re-industrialization across the country and ensuring AIs benefits are widely accessible.

Will Moss, a spokesperson for TSMC, said the company was open to discussions about expanding semiconductor development but was concentrating on its current global expansion projects and had no new investment plans to disclose at this time.

Speaking last week at an investor event for T-Mobile, which is a customer of OpenAI, Altman struck a modest tone about the companys ambitions.

We build on a gigantic amount of work that has come before us, he said. If you think about all that had to happen throughout human history to discover semiconductors and build chips and networks and these massive data centers, were just doing our one little bit on the very top of that.