I read the NY Times article that someone else linked to in the thread.
I've been in semiconductor / chip design for almost 30 years at 8 different companies including 2 that owned their own fabs. I've also worked on 2 different AI accelerator chips.
Altman sounds like someone who has no idea about the industry. The numbers in the article are laughable.
This quote summed it up.
> It is still unclear how all this would work. OpenAI has tried to assemble a loose federation of companies, including data center builders like Microsoft as well as investors and chipmakers. But the particulars of who would pay the money, who would get it and what they would even build are hazy.
He's trying to get a bunch of diverse companies including Microsoft to fund this but it's unclear what kind of chips he actually wants. Many of the big companies including Microsoft are designing their own custom AI chips.
But the article mentions Nvidia. Does OpenAI have any plans to design their own chips or do they just use Nvidia? It may be difficult to get Nvidia competitors to want to join his effort.
> TSMC makes semiconductors for Nvidia, the leading developer of A.I. chips. The plan would allow Nvidia to churn out more chips. OpenAI and other companies would use those chips in more A.I. data centers.
>Altman sounds like someone who has no idea about the industry.
I think it also sums up a lot about what I am seeing from software developers in general. Very little understanding of hardware. And even more so about hardware industry itself.
I see people on HN approach their lack of knowledge with a little more humility than the way Altman sounds in the article. He seems to be one of those people who thinks "I'm an expert in my area therefore I am an expert in all areas." The really smart people know what they know and also what they don't know and surround themselves with people that have the knowledge they lack. Someone he trusts should be telling him his ideas for fab expansion are crazy.
He's a Steve Jobs type C-level manager. The actual knowledge people are scientists such as Ilya Sutskever et al., many of whom left their company over the past year.
The question is whether LLMs are going to plateau. Either OpenAI and the tech industry system can keep progress going, or else more basic science is needed, in which case a government-project level of coordination is needed instead.
I've been in semiconductor / chip design for almost 30 years at 8 different companies including 2 that owned their own fabs. I've also worked on 2 different AI accelerator chips.
Altman sounds like someone who has no idea about the industry. The numbers in the article are laughable.
This quote summed it up.
> It is still unclear how all this would work. OpenAI has tried to assemble a loose federation of companies, including data center builders like Microsoft as well as investors and chipmakers. But the particulars of who would pay the money, who would get it and what they would even build are hazy.
He's trying to get a bunch of diverse companies including Microsoft to fund this but it's unclear what kind of chips he actually wants. Many of the big companies including Microsoft are designing their own custom AI chips.
But the article mentions Nvidia. Does OpenAI have any plans to design their own chips or do they just use Nvidia? It may be difficult to get Nvidia competitors to want to join his effort.
> TSMC makes semiconductors for Nvidia, the leading developer of A.I. chips. The plan would allow Nvidia to churn out more chips. OpenAI and other companies would use those chips in more A.I. data centers.