Altman’s major AI push starts in US

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has been seeking US government support for his major AI infrastructure project, which involves forming a coalition of global investors to fund the costly build (rumored to be “tens of billions of dollars”) of AI infrastructure—like data centers, turbines and generators to increase energy capacity, and AI chip manufacturing facilities—to power rapidly advancing AI models and systems around the globe.

Altman and other OpenAI executives have recently been in talks with interested investors from Canada, Korea, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates to push the project forward, and OpenAI’s biggest backer, Microsoft, is also expected to contribute.

Now, details have emerged that Altman plans to start his major global project in the US, to maintain their technological lead, after telling US policymakers that there’s an urgent need for AI infrastructure and that they must “work with the private sector to build significantly larger quantities of the physical infrastructure — from data centers to power plants — that run the AI systems themselves.”

Although the benefits of building more AI infrastructure to power AI systems in the US, and any countries allied with the US, are huge, the project could potentially raise concerns with the US Committee on Foreign Investment, as it will involve Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, which are tied to China. In defense, Altman believes his global infrastructure plans would give the US a geopolitical advantage as it will create an international coalition that’s able to compete with China’s own infrastructure consortium, and the foreign capital that might go to China, will come to the US.