ChatGPT has become a household name, and its parent company OpenAI was the first to bring AI to the masses, which gained broader adaptability in a very short time as people started using it for everything from writing emails to school homework to journalistic work to summarizing longer documents.
Sam Altman is good at spotting new trends
A man who quickly became a known figure around the globe was none other than OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, and he has been appearing in nightmares of billionaires like Elon Musk who recently filed a lawsuit against his company and also giving a tough time to tech giants like Google, who still haven’t been able to catch up despite spending billions of dollars.
But very few know that Altman is good at identifying developing trends, and before AI, Altman had bought into other emerging trends that transformed their sectors.
In 2008, Altman invested $100,000 in the rental company Airbnb, which later turned into a giant with a market cap of $103 billion and a common name with travelers around the world.
Airbnb changed the norms of staying at hotels and allowed common people to rent out spaces in their homes and apartments to make extra cash, which later turned into a full-time business opportunity for many.
Working on the same sharing resource approach, back in 2014, Altman poured $100,000 into Uber, which is a ride-sharing company, and now it has a market cap of $140 billion. Smart moves like these placed Altman on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people.
Altman is eyeing semiconductors and nuclear power generation
Altman is after another sector that already has tech giants with trillions of dollars at their disposal, and that is the semiconductor industry, as computer chips are the core of AI advancement and AI is the buzzword and focus of many tech giants at the moment.
It was rumored that Sam Altman is raising a fund of $7 trillion to fund his semiconductor ambitions, which he denied, but only to the extent of the dollar figure. The Wall Street Journal also reported that he wants to overhaul the semiconductor industry with heavy investments.
Altman was vocal about the supply and demand of chips for AI training that not only his company but all tech players need for their operations and manufacturing of goods, and there was a continuous shortage of these chips, especially after the pandemic.
In February this year, he also said,
“We believe the world needs more AI infrastructure—fab capacity, energy, datacenters, etc.—than people are currently planning to build.”
He pointed out that building massive-scale AI infrastructure and robust supply chains was important. Altman personally invested some money in Rain Neuromorphics, which is a chip startup, and before ChatGPT, OpenAI also pledged to invest $51 million in the same company. Last year, the US also forced a venture capital firm to sell its stake in the Rain because the venture was backed by Aramco, a Saudi construction giant.
Nvidia and TSMC are the two largest giants in the semiconductor sector, and Nvidia has made some very huge profits during the past year. It currently holds 80% of the chip market for artificial intelligence.
Google tried to challenge OpenAI but could not succeed, and Microsoft showed up with billions of dollars for Altman’s company. Even his own company ousted him from his position as CEO, but the guy came back with more vigor. Now he is eyeing semiconductors and modular nuclear reactors for power generation, and his company is still making waves with products like Sora, and there seems to be no stopping by.
