February 13, 2024 /SemiMedia/ -- According to reports, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is seeking to raise as much as $7 trillion to reshape the global semiconductor industry.

The report pointed out that Altman is proposing that OpenAI, investors, chip manufacturers and power suppliers establish a partnership to jointly fund the construction of wafer foundries, which will be operated by existing chip manufacturers and OpenAI will become an important customer of these factories.

According to insider, the plan may require raising as much as US$5 trillion to US$7 trillion, which will be much larger than the current scale of the global semiconductor industry. According to SEMI, global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment were $100 billion last year.

In talks with TSMC, Altman has expressed a desire to build dozens of fabs in the coming years, the insider said.