OpenAI Reportedly Talking to TSMC About Custom Chip Venture

[T0@st]

OpenAI is reported to be initiating R&D on a proprietary AI processing solution—the research organization's CEO, Sam Altman, has commented on the in-efficient operation of datacenters running NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs. He foresees a future scenario where his company becomes less reliant on Team Green's off-the-shelf AI-crunchers, with a deployment of bespoke AI processors. A short Reuters interview also underlined Altman's desire to find alternatives sources of power: "It motivates us to go invest more in (nuclear) fusion." The growth of artificial intelligence industries has put an unprecedented strain on energy providers, so tech firms could be semi-forced into seeking out frugal enterprise hardware.

The Financial Times has followed up on last week's Bloomberg report of OpenAI courting investment partners in the Middle East. FT's news piece alleges that Altman is in talks with billionaire businessman Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a very well connected member of the United Arab Emirates Royal Family. OpenAI's leadership is reportedly negotiating with TSMC—The Financial Times alleges that Taiwan's top chip foundry is an ideal manufacturing partner. This revelation contradicts Bloomberg's recent reports of a potential custom OpenAI AI chip venture involving purpose-built manufacturing facilities. The whole project is said to be at an early stage of development, so Altman and his colleagues are most likely exploring a variety of options.



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[Denver]

Now things are making sense...

 

[Udyr]

Now things are making sense...

Maybe you meant someone saw your post and said "wait a minute!"?

 

[thesmokingman]

Dude is hitting all the douche marks. In talks with the Saudis, check.

 

[Denver]

Maybe you meant someone saw your post and said "wait a minute!"?

I still think there was a miscommunication and that previous information was incorrect due to someone's fault lol

 

[Beermotor]

This is probably going to have two big potential side-effects:

• the AI industry moves to custom ASICs similar to the cryptocurrency mining industry, spawning a new market for AI ASICs
• As demand for Nvidia silicon drops, they're left holding the bag for tons of excess capacity at TSMC.
  • GPU AI work gets relegated to hobbyists using StableDiffusion to generate naked elf chicks.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

The day Jensen wakes up and realizes another fad's left him behind is going to be glorious.

 

[ThrashZone]

I still think there was a miscommunication and that previous information was incorrect due to someone's fault lol

Hi,
I was thinking more like hear/ say rumors as news.

 

[Beermotor]

Hi,
I was thinking more like hear/ say rumors as news.

Yes if there's only one (root) source for the story then it's probably hearsay.

I found a few other articles from a few days ago basically parroting the same information without citing a source.

• Apparently the original story came from Bloomberg. They're kind of iffy on their sourcing and slightly paywalled so I can't tell if they pulled from FT or if they were the origin of the rumor.
• The source of the TPU article is the Financial Times but I couldn't find a non-paywalled source to see if that's pulling from Bloomberg or vice versa.
• Tom's Hardware cited the Financial Times source.
• The Register cited the Bloomberg article

Obviously there are thousands of hits in search engines, but it's one big sourced link circlejerk. because none of these people that call themselves journalists do any kind of actual journalism anymore,

 

[remixedcat]

The day Jensen wakes up and realizes another fad's left him behind is going to be glorious.

He'll finally get his comeuppance fo neglectin gamers! So many gpu driver issues and nothing gets fixed.... it's still the cause of most crashes in linux... and yall know what Good ol Linus Torvalds thinks of nvidia!

 

[Redwoodz]

Now things are making sense...

Now Jensen offering Nvidia IP to partner with chipmakers makes sense...lol!