Sam Altman just shared an ambitious goal for rapidly scaling artificial intelligence: Build a factory capable of producing one gigawatt of new “AI infrastructure every week.”
In a Tuesday blog post titled “Abundant Intelligence,” the OpenAI CEO said that the “groundwork” for building out AI infrastructure is being put in place as more people rely on AI.
“Our vision is simple: we want to create a factory that can produce a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure every week,” Altman wrote, adding that the “execution of this will be extremely difficult” and will take years to accomplish the goal.
“In our opinion, it will be the coolest and most important infrastructure project ever,” he said.
Altman’s post said that “a lot” of the infrastructure will be built in the US and that more details on partners and plans to make the goal a reality will be unveiled over the next couple of months.
While Altman did not cite specific projects, one of the major vehicles that could help with Altman’s scaling efforts is Stargate, a $500 billion joint AI infrastructure project between OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank.
The first Stargate data center is under construction in Abilene, Texas.
A gigawatt of AI infrastructure — enough to power 876,000 households for a year — per week could also support some of OpenAI’s other recently announced ventures.
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On Monday, Nvidia announced a $100 billion investment in Altman’s startup, giving it access to at least 10 gigawatts of AI datacenters.
OpenAI also announced on Tuesday five more AI data center sites for its Stargate project, including the Abilene facility, which would deliver nearly 7 gigawatts of capacity.
The lingering question following both announcements is where exactly OpenAI will get the energy to power these systems.
Energy experts previously told Business Insider that getting access to the electricity needed by the Nvidia deal alone will be a challenge.
Brad Gastwirth, global head of research and market intelligence at Circular Technology, described the issue to BI as the “silent bottleneck” for the tech industry’s goals to scale AI.
“This is going to become a bigger and bigger issue as each year progresses,” he said.
Spokespeople for OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.
