OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman plans to spend trillions of dollars on data center buildouts in the “not very distant future” using innovative financing instruments that Open AI is currently working on, according to reports, quoting the CEO in an interview last week.
“You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars” on data centre construction in the “not very distant future”, Altman said, claiming that the company is working on designing “a new kind of financial instrument for finance and compute that the world has not yet figured out” to bankroll the jaw-dropping amount. Alman believed that eventually OpenAI would see “huge profits” and hence, it’s “very rational” for them to continue investing in AI.
OpenAI’s annual recurring revenue is now on track to pass US$ 20 billion this year, but the company is still losing money, according to reports.
Another more conventional way of funding the venture is going public, Altman reckoned, adding that OpenAI is currently still working to complete a complex corporate restructuring effort that has been ongoing for months. The CEO declined however to give a specific timeline.
While admitting that there is currently an AI bubble, Altman believed that the technology will have a lasting impact, just like the internet, and that society as a whole would unlikely regret the massive spending in AI. At the same time, he believed some current start-up valuations are “insane” and some would get “burnt”.
OpenAI is currently collaborating with SoftBank Group and Oracle in the US$500 billion four-year digital infrastructure buildout venture called Stargate. It looks like the OpenAI CEO has bigger plans now.
