'We’ll never get that lucky again': OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on ChatGPT’s breakthrough moment

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company’s early discovery of scaling laws for language models felt like a scientific windfall “we are probably never going to get lucky with again,” he said in a podcast with Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), which is also an investor in the AI giant.

The month-old podcast was resurfaced by a16z on its official X handle on Saturday.



Altman described the ChatGPT launch moment as a turning point that shaped OpenAI’s entire strategy.

“We stumbled on this one giant secret… and that felt like such an incredible triumph,” he said.

“When we got the reasoning model breakthrough, I also thought that we were never going to get another one like that.” Despite the improbability, he added, the technology has continued to outperform expectations.

AI infra: OpenAI’s next big bet

On strategy, Altman made clear that OpenAI is preparing a major expansion in its artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure footprint, as it continues to collaborate with firms like Foxconn, AMD, Nvidia, and Oracle, among others.

“We have decided that it is time to make a very aggressive infrastructure bet,” he said. “I have never been more confident in the research roadmap… and the economic value that will come from using those models. But to make the bet at this scale, we need the major chunk of the industry to support it.”

Per a Financial Times report, the combined value of these deals now stands at $1 trillion, compared to OpenAI’s valuation of $500 billion.

Altman said OpenAI’s approach is built on a “vertical stack of things”, where research drives great products, and infrastructure enables further research. He added that the company’s goal is to become “people’s personal AI subscription.”

Altman also signalled further expansion ahead. “The limits are very far from where we are today. If LLM-based stuff can get far enough, then it can do better research than all of OpenAI put together,” he said.

He noted that rising demand is one reason to grow but emphasised that the strategy is not based solely on existing models: “We wouldn’t be going this aggressive if all we had was today’s model.”

Also Read: How deals with OpenAI have led to share surges for its partners

OpenAI deals

According to Altman, the industry is now facing a substantial “overhang of capabilities” that has accumulated as models grow more powerful. The remarks follow a significant number of deals by the US-headquartered company.

Recently, OpenAI and Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn agreed to a partnership to design and manufacture key equipment for AI data centres in the US.

In October, OpenAI and AMD signed a multi-billion-dollar deal that sent the latter’s stock shooting. Under the deal, AMD will provide OpenAI with 6 GW of the latest version of its high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), starting next year.

On September 24, OpenAI signed a $100 billion deal with leading chipmaker Nvidia. Nvidia will invest the amount in OpenAI over a period of 10 years — starting with the first installment of $10 billion — which the AI company will use to buy Nvidia’s GPUs.

Also Read: OpenAI deal train arrives at Nvidia: All we know so far

On September 10, OpenAI and Oracle signed a $300 billion deal for cloud and computing capabilities. The five-year deal is part of the 10GW Stargate AI infrastructure project, which has the companies as partners, along with SoftBank.

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