TSMC's New Chairman Skeptical About OpenAI CEO's Plan

TapTechNews June 5 news, the world's largest chip foundry TSMC has just elected a new chairman, Wei Zhejia. He is skeptical about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's plan to challenge its chip supremacy and bluntly said it is too radical.

According to Reuters, Wei Zhejia said after TSMC's annual general meeting that he had previously talked to Altman about solving the chip shortage problem in the artificial intelligence industry, and he thought Altman's ambition to solve the chip shortage problem in the artificial intelligence field was too radical and beyond my belief.

For months, rumors about Altman's plan to make a big foray into the chip industry have been circulating in the industry. The Wall Street Journal reported in February this year that Altman's plan may require up to 7 trillion US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 50.68 trillion RMB) in funds for infrastructure such as building factories and data centers.

Reuters also revealed that Altman had proposed to cooperate with TSMC to build about 36 factories to meet his needs, but TSMC thought this number was too many.

Altman's vision is to design chips and manufacture them, which will make chip giants such as Nvidia and TSMC his competitors. Although Altman has not officially confirmed his plan to enter the chip manufacturing, the reason for him to do so seems obvious. Due to the supply restrictions in the chip market, many companies pursuing the wealth of artificial intelligence are facing bottlenecks in developing more powerful and profitable models.

Including Altman's OpenAI, currently most companies dedicated to artificial intelligence models rely on chips designed by a few companies such as Nvidia or AMD and are produced by TSMC as a contract manufacturer.