Sam Altman: "OpenAI Seeks New Funding from MS"

"Good Sales Growth This Year"
Specific Figures Not Disclosed
Still a Structure Difficult to Generate Profit

OpenAI, which led the global generative artificial intelligence (AI) boom with ChatGPT, announced that it is exploring ways to secure new investments from Microsoft (MS), its major shareholder.

On the 13th (local time), Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said in an interview with a British media outlet, "The partnership with MS is working well," and added, "We expect to be able to raise new funds from MS to cover the enormous costs involved in building more sophisticated next-generation AI models."

He emphasized, "There is still a long way to go and many technological advancements to achieve to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) that performs at a human-equivalent level." When asked if he thought they could secure additional investment from MS, he replied, "I hope so."

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.
Photo by AFP Yonhap News

Regarding performance and financial status, he self-assessed, "This year’s revenue growth has been good," but did not disclose specific figures. He explained, "The company’s structure still makes it difficult to turn a profit due to the massive operating costs used to train AI."

Although monetization has not yet fully begun, OpenAI’s corporate value has skyrocketed as its AI technology has been recognized. In January this year, OpenAI secured a $10 billion investment from MS, the largest single investment amount, during which MS valued OpenAI at $29 billion.

Last month, during the sale of existing shares held by employees, OpenAI was valued at $86 billion. Its valuation tripled in less than a year. Among private companies worldwide, it ranks third highest in valuation among unicorn startups, following China’s ByteDance ($225 billion), developer of TikTok, and Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX ($150 billion).

He stressed, "People say we have the OpenAI research lab, an application programming interface (API), a partnership with MS, ChatGPT, and the GPT Store, but our true product is the intelligence platform that connects these individual products with users worldwide."

Altman also pledged to accelerate the development of ‘superintelligence’ technology that surpasses human intelligence. He said, "We are spending a lot of time on two areas: research on ‘how to build superintelligence’ and how to build the computing power for it," emphasizing, "Our vision is to make AGI safe."

He also confirmed that OpenAI is developing the next-generation AI model, ‘GPT-5.’ GPT-5 is the successor to ‘GPT-4 Turbo,’ which OpenAI unveiled at its first developer conference (Dev Day) held on June 6 in San Francisco, California. He said, "I am confident that GPT-5 will be more sophisticated than previous models, but it is difficult to predict exactly what features and technologies it will have." However, he did not disclose a specific release schedule.

Regarding Nvidia’s cutting-edge semiconductor ‘H100,’ which OpenAI has adopted, Altman lamented, "There was a brutal crisis this year due to a shortage of Nvidia chips, which cost $40,000 each," and predicted, "Supply conditions will improve next year." He added, "Since MS, Google, AMD, and Intel are preparing to launch AI chips, dependence on Nvidia will not last long."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.