OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman has been working to build a country-led coalition needed to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology worldwide, while also pitching AI services for corporate use to global industry giants, mulitple agencies reported recently.
According to Bloomberg, Altman has been working to build a global coalition to support boosting the supply of chips, energy, and data center capacity, citing multiple people familiar with the discussions.
He met with investors in the UAE last week to discuss how the private sector can work with countries to support costly, large-scale infrastructure for AI, sources told Bloomberg, who requested anonymity to share private discussions.
Altman has also spoken with officials in a number of Western countries and is holding meetings in Washington later this week, one of the people said. It’s not yet clear what form this effort will take. The meetings mark Altman’s latest attempt to address concerns that the supply of chips and other key infrastructure won’t be able to keep pace with the rapid deployment of AI.
ChatGPT for corporates
Altman also hosted hundreds of Fortune 500 company executives in San Francisco, New York and London this month where he and other OpenAI executives pitched AI services for corporate use, going head to head in some cases with financial backer Microsoft, attendees told Reuters.
The roadshow-like events illustrate how the company credited with sparking the explosion of generative artificial intelligence with its consumer offering, is looking to grow new sources of revenue from corporates all over the world - some of it potentially on the home turf of its biggest partner.
The three meetings with senior corporate executives included two in the US last week and one in London on Monday.
Altman directly addressed more than 100 executives in each city at the events, according to attendees who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
Product demonstrations
At each event, Altman and chief operating officer Brad Lightcap offered product demonstrations, including ChatGPT Enterprise, the enterprise grade of its famous chatbot that generates text from simple prompts, software to connect customer applications to its AI services known as APIs, and its new text-to-video models.
OpenAI has promised that ChatGPT Enterprise customers’ data will not be used to train its models. Talking to potential customers from industries including finance, healthcare and energy, OpenAI executives highlighted a range of applications, such as call-center management and translation. They noted the consumer version of its chatbot is already in use by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies.
Microsoft, the largest investor in OpenAI, offers access to OpenAI’s technology through its Azure cloud and by selling Microsoft 365 Copilot, a productivity tool powered by OpenAI’s models targeting enterprises.
Some executives in the audience at the events asked why they should pay for ChatGPT Enterprise if they are already customers of Microsoft, attendees said.
Altman and Lightcap responded that paying for the enterprise service allowed them to work with the OpenAI team directly, have access to the latest models and more opportunity to get customized AI products, according to attendees present.
OpenAI and Microsoft declined to comment.
Working to raise billions
Altman has been working to raise billions of dollars from global investors for a chip venture, aiming to use the funds to set up a network of factories to manufacture semiconductors, Bloomberg reported earlier. Altman’s engagement with officials around the world represents a more sprawling outreach than was previously known.
The CEO’s current discussions also go beyond chip production to include other resources such as energy and data center capacity, several people familiar with the discussions said. It’s not yet clear what form this effort will take. “As previously reported, OpenAI is having ongoing conversations about increasing global infrastructure and supply chains for chips, energy and data centers,” a spokesperson for OpenAI said in a statement.
“We look forward to sharing more details at a later date.” The ChatGPT maker views the need for vast amounts of energy to power AI systems as one of the biggest infrastructure challenges facing the tech industry, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.
Altman has previously talked about the need for an energy “breakthrough” to support the incredibly power-hungry technology, and suggested cheaper solar power or nuclear fusion could fuel AI development.
OpenAI, last valued at $86 billion in a secondary sale, has been trying to diversify its revenue stream since its chatbot ChatGPT quickly gained popularity in late 2022. It is on track to achieve the $1 billion revenue target it projected for 2024, sources have said.
While trying to build out new products of consumers such as the marketplace ChatGPT stores, the company expects selling to enterprises to become a more meaningful part of its revenue.
