OpenAI’s Sam Altman in talks with Middle East backers over chip venture

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Sam Altman is in discussions with Middle Eastern investors and chip fabricators including TSMC about launching a new chip venture, as the OpenAI chief executive seeks to satisfy his company’s growing need for semiconductors while reducing its reliance on Nvidia.

Altman has spoken to some of the wealthiest investors in the region about funding the ambitious new project to develop chips required to train and build AI models, and the plants required to fabricate them, according to people with direct knowledge of the talks.

The 38-year-old entrepreneur is in talks with investors in the United Arab Emirates, including Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, one of Abu Dhabi’s wealthiest and most influential figures, about funding the venture, said the people.

It is also talking to Taiwanese chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co about a partnership to fabricate the chips, they said.

OpenAI and TSMC declined to comment. It was not immediately possible to reach Sheikh Tahnoon for comment.

Sheikh Tahnoon is one of the UAE’s most powerful men, a brother of the Gulf state’s president Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, for whom he is national security adviser. He also oversees a rapidly expanding business empire and chairs some of Abu Dhabi’s most powerful state investment funds. 

These include the $800bn Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and ADQ, another state investment entity. He also chairs International Holding Company, a sprawling conglomerate that has rapidly become the UAE’s largest listed firm, and G42, an ambitious AI company that has partnerships with Microsoft and OpenAI.

It is not clear how much Altman has sought to raise for his new venture, but designing and developing chips is a very expensive endeavour and attempting to compete with Nvidia, which has a market capitalisation of almost $1.5tn, is likely to cost billions…