Charlie Kawwas, president of semiconductors at Broadcom, confirmed yesterday that OpenAI is not the mysterious client who signed up to pay $10 billion in custom chips. In September the existence of that enigmatic client became known and there was unanimity assuming that it would be OpenAI. But it turns out it’s not OpenAI.
“I would love to receive a purchase order for 10 billion from my good friend Greg,” Kawwas said. referring to Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI. “He hasn’t given it to me yet.”
Why is it important. During the Cold War, nuclear installations could be counted from satellites. In the AI race, someone may be building the computational equivalent of a nuclear arsenal and we have no way of knowing.
AI chips are the new strategic weapons. And unlike enriched uranium, they travel discreetly in commercial containers. An entity with $10 billion to spend on custom semiconductors is building AI capability on a beastly scale.
The candidates. The analysis rules out the usual suspects:
- Meta and Google They are already known Broadcom customers.
- amazon has its own chip strategy with AWS.
- Microsoft invest through your partner-friend-enemy OpenAI.
More disturbing options remain:
- Gulf sovereign wealth funds with technological ambitions.
- Government entities Americans (NSA, classified projects).
- Chinese actors operating through intermediaries.
- Apple preparing a major play in AI.
This last option would be the canary in the mine to anticipate Apple’s total immersion in AI, but the parakeet Gurman has not anticipated anything, so it sounds like a very remote option.
The money trail. Broadcom does not announce the arrival of these types of customers by chance. In September, CEO Hock Tan mentioned this $10 billion order because it completely changed the company’s revenue projections for 2025.
Broadcom shares are up more than 53% so far this year. And in 2024 they will already double their value. The market always values these secret contracts even if it does not know who signs the check.
In perspective. Opacity in AI infrastructure investments has become the norm. Companies treat their component strategies as classified information.
OpenAI just announced 33 gigawatts of computing capacity between agreements with NVIDIA, AMD and Broadcom. One gigawatt can cost $50 billion. The figures are stratospheric, but at least we know who signs them.
The alarm signal. When $10 billion in critical technology changes hands without identification, we have a problem because computational training capacity, in the age of AI, is geopolitical power.
This case is also a message about the immediate future: the next technological revolution may be developing outside of any public scrutiny.
Featured image | Xataka
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