OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman has vowed to build artificial intelligence-specific hardware to complement the company’s already massive achievements in generative AI software development.
His statement comes just two weeks after US President Donald Trump announced the formation of the Stargate venture comprising Open AI, Oracle and Japan’s Softbank Group.
The three company CEOs were present at the venture’s announcement which took place a day after Trump’s inauguration. They agreed to initially invest US$100bn to develop AI infrastructure and made a longer-term commitment for a US$500bn investment.
The Stargate venture is a key pillar in the USA’s quest to develop new-age technology to head off the technological challenge presented by China. Development must take place within the US.
Nikkei Asia reports that Altman wants to recruit Apple’s former chief design officer Jony Ive to the project. It says Altman is visiting Japan and has arranged to meet with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
“It feels to me like AI is a big enough shift in how we can interact with computers that there ought to be a new kind of hardware,” Altman told the publication.
Japan is key to the venture, given that Southbank Group, a multinational investment holding company, will be the project’s key financier.
It is especially ambitious given the main AI-related hardware developed in the US so far comes from outside the Stargate venture by the likes of Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple and Amazon.
Altman is making use of Softbank’s key involvement by going on a recruiting spree within Japan.
The Stargate venture follows a visit by Softbank Group CEO Masayoshi Son to Trump on December 16 last year.
Datacentre Dynamics reported that Son had already announced plans to invest $100 billion in the US at that meeting held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Trump said the investment would “ensure that artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, and other industries of tomorrow are built created, and grown right here in the USA,” the publication reported.
It said Son previously announced a US$50bn SoftBank investment in the US when Trump first ran for president in 2016.