OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns of "unsustainable silliness" in compute buildout
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has expressed concerns about the AI infrastructure boom, calling it "unsustainable silliness" in an interview. He pointed to neocloud providers that are announcing massive capacity without the revenue or customers to back it up. Altman assured that OpenAI's own expansion is profitable and driven by real demand, but noted that many others have a "cost is no object" mindset. He warned that OpenAI's own efficiency gains could make today's expensive buildouts bad bets. A broad downturn could also strain OpenAI's ability to pay for committed capacity, though he sees that risk as manageable. OpenAI currently does not sell compute to third parties, but Altman did not rule it out entirely. His tone is notably more cautious than in the past, when Anthropic's CEO accused him of recklessly spending on compute.
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