According to reports, OpenAI considered acquiring a chip manufacturer so that it could develop its own AI chips.
Amidst a global shortage of the pricey and challenging-to-build technology, OpenAI, the company behind the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, is investigating the feasibility of producing processing chips internally.
According to a Reuters article from October 5 that cited persons with knowledge of the situation, OpenAI has even considered acquiring an unnamed business to further its goals of developing AI chips.
The business has yet to determine whether it will proceed with the transaction. In addition, OpenAI has been internally debating a number of additional solutions to the current chip shortage.
Along with developing its own processors, options include collaborating more closely with NVIDIA, its current principal chip supplier, and expanding the pool of chip suppliers beyond those it now uses.
According to a now-deleted blog post by Raza Habib, the CEO of AI business Humanloop, Sam Altman, the founder and CEO of OpenAI, complained earlier this year that chip shortages were hindering his company’s development in front of a conference full of AI developers.
According to Habib, the fact that OpenAI is currently severely GPU-limited and that this is delaying many of their short-term ambitions was a recurring issue throughout the debate.
Suppose the rumored intention to produce its own chips materializes. In that case, OpenAI will join a select club of computer industry titans, including Google and Amazon, which have taken chip production in-house.
The demand for specialized AI processors has increased since ChatGPT’s release to the public in November last year. The following rise in demand has caused NVIDIA’s share price to soar as businesses scrambling to develop AI applications rush to buy the pricy computer equipment.
