Sam Altman Is Looking For Chip Funds And Partners In Asia And The Middle East For OpenAI Expansion

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is looking for chip procurement in Asia (photo: x @5149jamesli)

JAKARTA - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is on a global tour of East Asia and the Middle East to seek funding and manufacturing partners in order to expand the company's computing infrastructure. This is known according to a report by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Saturday, October 4.

According to the report, since late September Altman has held a series of meetings in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan with a number of major suppliers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Foxconn, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix. The main purpose of the talks is to increase the production capacity of AI chips and ensure that OpenAI gets top priority in ordering these important components.

WSJ reports that Altman is pressuring suppliers to increase chip production capacity and provide special priorities for OpenAI orders, as global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) increases.

Microsoft, TSMC, Foxconn, Samsung, and SK Hynix have not responded to requests for comment outside normal working hours.

Earlier this week, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix reportedly signed a statement of intent (letters of intent) to supply memory chips for the OpenAI step data center which is considered an important part of the company's efforts to strengthen its global computing capacity.

Apart from East Asia, Altman also plans to visit the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to meet potential investors. The meeting aims to raise additional funds to support infrastructure expansion and OpenAI's long-term research.

According to a WSJ report citing internal sources, OpenAI has informed investors and its business partners that the company is likely to spend around US$16 billion (around Rp260 trillion) to lease a computing server by 2025 alone. That figure is even expected to jump to US$400 billion (around Rp6,500 trillion) in 2029, as the operating scale and data processing needs for artificial intelligence increase.

Altman's aggressive move underscores OpenAI's ambition to strengthen its position as a global leader in the AI industry, amid intense competition with tech giants such as Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Meta AI.

With global demand for the ever-increasing AI model, the collaboration between OpenAI and semiconductor Asian giants is seen as a strategic step to ensure the availability of chips that are the backbone of the future development of artificial intelligence technology.