OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar suggested the market is overly focused on anxiety about a possible bubble in the artificial intelligence sector and should muster more “exuberance” about the technology’s potential.
“I don’t think there’s enough exuberance about AI, when I think about the actual practical implications and what it can do for individuals,” Friar said in an onstage interview at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in California on Wednesday. “We should keep running at it.”
There has been mounting scrutiny in recent months on soaring valuations for AI companies as well as the accelerating spending spree from tech firms on data centers and chips to support artificial intelligence development. OpenAI alone has committed to spending more than $1.4 trillion on AI infrastructure, even though the company remains unprofitable.
To support its AI data center buildout, OpenAI has made a series of blockbuster deals with firms like Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. that have been criticized as circular financing arrangements. Nvidia, for example, agreed to invest as much as $100 billion in OpenAI to help fund its data center expansions. OpenAI, in turn, committed to filling those sites with millions of Nvidia chips. But in the interview, Friar said, “I kind of reject the premise completely.”
“We’re all just building out full infrastructure today that allows more compute to come into the world,” Friar said. “I don’t view it as circular at all,” she continued. “A huge body of work in the last year has been to diversify that supply chain.”
In addition to OpenAI’s deals with chipmakers, the ChatGPT maker is also eying a broad mix of financing vehicles to fund its infrastructure efforts. Friar said OpenAI is “looking for an ecosystem of banks [and] private equity” to support its ambitious plans. She also hinted at a role for the US government to “backstop the guarantee that allows the financing to happen,” but did not elaborate on how this would work.
Asked for clarification, an OpenAI spokesperson said Friar was speaking in the context of the broader AI industry. There are currently no immediate plans about OpenAI pursuing a federal backstop, the spokesperson said.
OpenAI is also expected to pursue a public offering in the coming years to raise additional capital, but Friar said there is no IPO effort currently underway.
“We’re not getting ready for an IPO,” she said. “IPO is not on the cards right now.”
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