A global race to build powerful computer chips that are essential for the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools could have a major impact on global politics and security.
The US is currently leading the race in the design of these chips, also known as semiconductors. But most of the manufacturing is carried out in Taiwan. The debate has been fueled by the call by Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT’s developer OpenAI, for a US$5 trillion to US$7 trillion (£3.9 trillion to £5.5 trillion) global investment to produce more powerful chips for the next generation of AI platforms.
The amount of money Altman called for is more than the chip industry has spent in total since it began. Whatever the facts about those numbers, overall projections for the AI market are mind blowing. The data analytics company GlobalData forecasts that the market will be worth US$909 billion by 2030.
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