ChatGPT-owner OpenAI is exploring making its own AI chips
According to persons familiar with the company's ambitions, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is considering developing its artificial intelligence chips and even thought about analyzing a potential acquisition target.
According to recent internal conversations reported to Reuters, the business has not yet decided to proceed. However, since at least last year, it has addressed potential solutions to the problem of the pricey AI chip scarcity on which OpenAI is dependent.
These choices include developing its own AI processor, collaborating more closely with other chipmakers, such as Nvidia, and expanding its supply base outside Nvidia.
OpenAI chose not to respond.
The company's primary aim, according to CEO Sam Altman, is to buy more AI processors. In a market dominated by Nvidia, which holds more than 80% of the worldwide market share for the processors best suited to powering AI applications, he has openly lamented the lack of graphics processing units.
The drive to obtain more chips is related to two key issues that Altman has identified: a lack of the cutting-edge processors needed to power OpenAI's software and the "eye-watering" price of maintaining the hardware required to support its initiatives and products.
Since 2020, Microsoft, one of OpenAI's biggest investors, has built a gigantic supercomputer using 10,000 Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) on which the company has been developing its generative artificial intelligence technology.
The cost of running ChatGPT is prohibitive for the business. According to a study by Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon, each inquiry costs about 4 cents. Initially, ChatGPT would need around $48.1 billion in GPUs, and it would need about $16 billion in chips a year to run if searches reached a tenth the size of Google search.
CUSTOM CHIPS ERA
OpenAI would join a select group of major tech companies that have pushed to gain control over creating the chips that are essential to their operations, like Alphabet's Google and Amazon.com if it attempted to to make its own AI processors.
Whether OpenAI will proceed with its ambition to develop a unique microprocessor is unknown. According to experts in the field, doing so would require a significant investment and a big strategic push that may cost hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Even if OpenAI invested resources in the project, success is not guaranteed.
A chip business purchase might expedite the development of OpenAI's processor, as it did for Amazon.com when it acquired Annapurna Labs in 2015.
According to one of the people acquainted with its plans, OpenAI had thought about the approach until the point at which it carried out due diligence on a prospective acquisition candidate.
It couldn't determine the name of the corporation whose purchases OpenAI looked into.
Even if OpenAI moves forward while maintaining its goals to create a bespoke processor, which might include an acquisition, the task is expected to take many years, making the business dependent on for-profit suppliers like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices in the interim.
Large tech companies have had mixed success with their own processor development over the years. According to a Reuters report, problems with Meta's custom chip project forced the company to abandon some of its AI chips. A new chip developed by the owner of Facebook will support all kinds of AI work.
According to The Information, Microsoft, one of OpenAI's primary backers, is also creating a unique AI chip that OpenAI is currently testing. The plans might indicate that the two companies are growing apart.
Since the introduction of ChatGPT last year, the demand for specialized AI chips has skyrocketed. The most recent generative AI technology must be trained and run on specific chips, Artificial intelligence accelerators. Nvidia, one of the few chip manufacturers that creates practical AI chips, rules the market.