Sam Altman's $7 trillion chip ambitions are 'too aggressive,' TSMC chief says
- Even for the boss of the world's biggest chipmaker, Sam Altman's chip plans are a lot.
- TSMC's CEO C.C. Wei said Tuesday that OpenAI's ambitions were "too aggressive."
The leader of the world's largest chipmaker has strong thoughts on Open AI CEO Sam Altman's plans to challenge him in the silicon arena: "He's too aggressive."
C.C. Wei, the CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, who was elected chairman of the chipmaking giant Tuesday, said this after holding talks with Altman about the OpenAI chief's ambitions to solve the AI industry's big chip-shortage problem.
"He is very aggressive, too aggressive for me to believe," Wei said after TSMC's annual shareholders' meeting, Reuters reported.
It's not hard to see why he feels that way.
For months, rumors have swirled that Altman is preparing to give the world a lot more than just ChatGPT amid his plan to reportedly get into the chip business at a staggering scale.
Altman's 'aggressive' plans
First, there's the potential cost. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Altman's plans could require up to $7 trillion in financing for everything from manufacturing plants to data centers.
Reuters said Altman proposed a partnership with TSMC that would see it build "roughly three dozen factories" to meet its needs — a number that TSMC officials deemed "too many."
Some high-profile potential stakeholders — including Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates' national security advisor, and SoftBank's billionaire boss Masayoshi Son — have been linked to the chip venture. OpenAI's discussions with TSMC were first reported in January.
Altman's vision for the venture is apparently to design chips and fabricate them — industry-speak for manufacturing designs — which would turn chip powerhouses like Nvidia and TSMC into competitors.
Though Altman has not officially confirmed his intentions to pursue chipmaking, his rationale for doing it seems straightforward.
Companies scrambling for AI riches have faced the threat of slowdowns in their pursuit of better, more lucrative models because of supply constraints in the chip market.
The majority of the companies working on AI models, including Altman's OpenAI, rely on chips designed by a handful of companies, such as Nvidia or AMD, and manufactured by TSMC.
A venture doing both at a world-class level would be unprecedented — and a clear threat to the small group that controls the world's chip supply.
But with Taiwan facing the threat of invasion from China, and chip demand projected to continue growing as the AI boom continues, someone will need to find a way to step up chip supply at a global scale.
Though TSMC is boosting production in Arizona and has plans to open a third US factory by 2030, Wei said Tuesday that shifting existing production out of Taiwan would be impossible.
Don't be surprised if Altman tries to solve AI's chip problem himself.