OpenAI’s Altman seeks funds for infrastructure expansion on Asia, Middle East tour, WSJ reports

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(Reuters) -OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has embarked on a global fundraising initiative spanning East Asia and the Middle East, seeking financing and manufacturing partners to meet the company’s demand for its computing capacity, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing sources familiar with the meetings.

Altman has held discussions since late September in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan with major suppliers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Foxconn, Samsung, and SK Hynix to boost AI chip production and secure top-priority orders for OpenAI, the report said.

Altman was pushing these companies to increase production capacity and give priority to OpenAI’s orders, the newspaper added.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Microsoft, TSMC, Foxconn, Samsung and SK Hynix couldn’t immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.

Earlier this week, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix had signed letters of intent to supply memory chips for OpenAI’s data centers.

Altman has planned to visit investors in the United Arab Emirates to raise money to help fund OpenAI’s infrastructure expansion and research, WSJ said.

OpenAI recently told its investors and business partners that it was likely to spend around $16 billion in renting computing servers this year, and that the expenditure could rise to around $400 billion in 2029, the report added, citing people familiar with the matter.

(Reporting by Dheeraj Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)