OpenAI could someday let other businesses tap into data centers needed for artificial intelligence (AI).
That’s according to a report Wednesday (Aug. 21) from Bloomberg News, citing an interview with OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar.
Such a system would be loosely based on Amazon’s practice of renting spare cloud computing capacity to other businesses, Friar said, adding that OpenAI is not “actively looking” at a similar arrangement now as it focuses on boosting computing capacity for its own operations.
“I do think about it as a business down the line, for sure,” Friar added.
After years of building expertise in designing and establishing data centers, the company now sees a way to profit from that skill and rely less on third-party vendors.
“If all we do is buy from others, all we’re doing is giving them our IP because they’re learning how to build AI infrastructure,” Friar said.
After years of turning to partners like Microsoft to fund its data center projects, the company is now seeing banks and private equity groups “come to the table” with debt financing to bolster its infrastructure work, Friar said.
“That’s the next path we’re going down,” Friar said. Beyond that, she added, the company is “trying to be thoughtful” about whether there are “other interesting, novel ways we could do that beyond debt.”
OpenAI is unprofitable, hindering its ability to build data centers without outside investment, though the company has enjoyed revenue growth due to demand for its ChatGPT model. Friar said the company generated $1 billion in revenue in July, the first time it has done so.
Also Wednesday, Friar told CNBC that she believed the AI boom was just beginning, following news reports that the industry had reached a bubble.
“It’s more like the railroads or the buildout of electricity than anything I’ve seen,” Friar said. “The internet, it turns out in hindsight, was actually a relatively capex-light buildout. I think we are just getting started.
Her comments came after a drop in tech stocks, driven in part over concerns that the AI sector is overhyped. Declines of high-profile tech firms like Nvidia, Arm and Palantir were fueled by a new study by researchers at MIT that found that most organizations are getting “zero returns” on their investments in the generative AI space.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had said last week Friday that the AI market is in a bubble, while adding that he thought the industry was nonetheless still strong.
Source: https://www.pymnts.com/
