Singapore’s Temasek in Talks to Invest in OpenAI Amid Its $5T AI Chip Project

Singapore state-owned investment firm Temasek Holdings is reportedly in talks to invest in OpenAI, the AI development firm behind ChatGPT.

Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing sources that said OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has met several times over the recent months with senior executives at Temasek concerning an investment deal. 

Temasek in Preliminary Talk to Invest in OpenAI

Temasek had initially planned to invest in Altman’s venture capital company, Hydrazine Capital, which invests in education, speciality foods, hospitality, and internet-connected hardware sectors, among others. However, the recent discussions between the parties now include a deal for OpenAI as well.

The discussions are still in the early stages, and no investment amount has been concluded yet, per the report.

The development today comes as OpenAI plans to build a massive-scale AI infrastructure to make chips, estimated to cost between $5 trillion and $7 trillion. As such, the nonprofit company is currently in the market to source capital to fund its ambitious chip factories. 

Besides Temasek, Altman has also been discussing fundraising deals with SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, one of the wealthiest people in Abu Dhabi, and several other top investors. 

OpenAI had previously received funding worth over $13 billion from Microsoft as of November 2023. And despite seeing incremental growth in revenue over the past years, reports note that OpenAI has been operating at a loss, with the CEO pointing to the high costs of building and training their models.

Will OpenAI Dominate the AI Chip Market?

If completed, the AI infrastructure could become a major profit-making business for the AI firm. In a post on X, Altman made it known that the planned facility would serve the global market, not the OpenAI itself. 

“…Building massive-scale ai infrastructure, and a resilient supply chain is crucial to economic competitiveness. Openai will try to help,” the post reads.

Given the scale at which OpenAI plans to build its AI infrastructure, it could become a major contender for the likes of Nvidia, which currently dominates 80% of the global AI chip market. 

“We believe the world needs more ai infrastructure–fab capacity, energy, datacenters, etc–than people are currently planning to build,” Altman wrote. 

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