OpenAI, the AI large behind ChatGPT and DALL-E, is seeking to develop its personal AI chips as the corporate’s portfolio of AI merchandise continues to develop and evolve. In response to studies, OpenAI would possibly even take into account buying one other firm completely for this objective.
Because the AI race intensifies with tech giants going toe to toe in opposition to one another, corporations like OpanAI are going through a severe scarcity of chips wanted to run highly effective AI fashions.
OpenAI at present depends on GPU-based {hardware}, largely from Nvidia, to develop AI fashions like ChatGPT, GPT-4, and DALL-E 3. Nonetheless, with CEO Sam Altman making the acquisition of extra AI chips a high precedence for OpenAI, this would possibly change sooner or later.
OpenAI Exploring Its Chip Choices
Whereas the AI large is but to maneuver forward with the manufacturing of its personal chips, it’s actively evaluating its methods. One of the best-performing chips from Nvidia, OpenAI’s main chip provider, are already bought out till 2024.
This led the corporate to take into account diversifying its suppliers by collaborating extra intently with different chipmakers.
Altman, who is without doubt one of the primary driving forces behind the choice, has expressed issues over the rising prices and restricted availability of chips.
Therefore, it’s no shock that OpenAI is seeking to develop its personal chips and may additionally go the acquisition path to deal with chip manufacturing. In response to folks acquainted with OpenAI’s future plans, the corporate has even gone as far forward as evaluating a possible acquisition goal.
Having raised over $11 billion in enterprise capital and earned near $1 billion in annual income, OpenAI is undoubtedly in a superb place to take a position closely in analysis and growth.
In response to a report by the Wall Road Journal, the corporate can also be planning a share sale that would trigger its secondary-market valuation to rise to $90 billion, which is “roughly triple its stage earlier this 12 months”.
Can OpenAI Develop Its Personal Chips?
As of now, Nvidia is without doubt one of the only a few corporations that develop specialised AI chips. Also called AI accelerators, these chips are essential in coaching and working the newest generative AI fashions.
If OpenAI does handle to develop its personal AI chips, it might put the corporate in an elite group of tech giants like Google and Amazon.
OpenAI has been reportedly testing an AI chip named Athena, developed in-house by Microsoft in collaboration with AMD.
Google trains its giant AI methods like PaLM-2 and Imagen by itself TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) chip. Amazon, too, affords chips to AWS prospects for coaching and inferencing functions.
Amazon’s acquisition of Annapurna Labs in 2015 gave it an enormous enhance, considerably dashing up the method of creating its personal AI chips.
Nonetheless, severe challenges stay in OpenAI’s plan to develop its personal AI chips. Final 12 months, AI chipmaker Graphcore misplaced $1 billion in market valuation after its cope with Microsoft.
Over the previous few months, Graphcore has been suffering from falling income and elevated losses. Habana Labs, an AI chip firm owned by Intel, needed to lay off 10% of its workforce.
Meta has been struggling to develop its personal AI chips, too, to the purpose that it needed to scrap a few of its experimental {hardware}.
With every ChatGPT question costing roughly 4 cents, working the AI chatbot is already an costly enterprise for OpenAI. An effort to develop its personal AI chips could value the corporate lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} a 12 months.
It stays to be seen if OpenAI’s traders, together with Microsoft, which owns 49% of the corporate’s stakes, can be prepared to take such a threat.