Going to the Middle East to make money and to East Asia for chips, Altman's second "Computing Power Empire Roadshow"

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is launching a global fundraising and supply chain initiative, seeking financing and manufacturing partners to meet the startup's enormous demand for computing power. Unlike the controversial $7 trillion infrastructure plan pitch at the beginning of 2024, this time he has garnered more support.

On October 4th, it was reported that since late September, the head of the ChatGPT maker has visited Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan to accelerate the construction of global AI chip manufacturing capabilities. He met with companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor, Foxconn, Samsung, and SK Hynix to push these companies to increase capacity and prioritize OpenAI's orders.

Altman also plans to visit investors in the UAE to raise funds for OpenAI's infrastructure expansion and research. According to insiders, part of the potential new capital will be used to fund the Stargate data center located in Abu Dhabi.

The backdrop of this trip is a significant agreement reached between OpenAI and Nvidia, where the chip giant agreed to lease up to 5 million AI chips to the ChatGPT maker and invest up to $100 billion to achieve this goal. This agreement boosted the stock prices of global chip suppliers and provided strong support for Altman's vision of a "computing power empire."

From Doubt to Support: Recognition of Computing Power Demand

Altman's recent trip recalls his journey at the beginning of 2024. At that time, he pitched a $7 trillion infrastructure plan to these companies (Taiwan Semiconductor, Samsung, SK Hynix, etc.) and sought funding support from the UAE.

However, some industry leaders believed that given the negligible revenue from AI services at the time, Altman's plan was unrealistic. Shortly after this trip, Taiwan Semiconductor CEO Wei Zhejia stated that Altman was "too aggressive, I find it hard to believe."

This time, he has received more support. OpenAI's confidence in computing power stems from the significant deal with Nvidia, which helped solidify Altman's vision for computing power.

About three years after launching the AI chatbot, OpenAI is currently valued at $500 billion, comparable to global companies like Netflix and ExxonMobil.

East Asia Layout: Locking in Chip Capacity

In recent days, Altman has held talks with Samsung, SK Hynix, and Japanese electronics and industrial company Hitachi's technology leaders. The announcement of these partnerships boosted the stock prices of the three companies.

Altman has brought the two Korean companies in as storage chip partners.

According to insiders, OpenAI's overall demand could reach 900,000 wafers per month, which is more than double the current global capacity for high-bandwidth memory. These companies plan to jointly develop AI data centers with OpenAI in South Korea.

In Japan, OpenAI has reached an agreement with Hitachi, where the Japanese conglomerate will support OpenAI in developing AI infrastructure, including providing power transmission and distribution equipment for the American startup's data centers OpenAI will provide its models and other technologies to Hitachi.

Reports also indicate that Altman has discussed the manufacturing and deployment of NVIDIA's upcoming Rubin system with several companies. OpenAI will be one of the first customers to receive the Rubin system in the second half of 2026.

Fundraising in the Middle East: Paving the Way for Data Center Construction

During his stay in the Middle East, Altman plans to meet with the investment funds MGX and Mubadala in Abu Dhabi, as well as OpenAI's operational partner G42. Potential new capital will be partially used to fund the Stargate data center in Abu Dhabi.

Insiders have indicated that OpenAI recently informed investors and business partners that the company may spend about $16 billion this year on leasing computing servers, and this expenditure could rise to about $400 billion by 2029.

Grand Blueprint for a Computing Empire: A Target of 1GW per Week

This week, OpenAI reignited global enthusiasm with the release of the video generation model Sora 2 on Tuesday.

Industry participants expect that such models and applications will significantly drive the growth of computing demand compared to text-based models. Altman wrote in a recent blog:

"Our vision is simple: we want to create a factory that can produce 1GW of new AI infrastructure every week."

Last month, OpenAI and NVIDIA announced that they would deploy at least 10GW of NVIDIA computing systems for OpenAI to train and run the next generation of models.

OpenAI also announced the locations of five new data centers in the United States, in collaboration with Oracle and the Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank