Sam Altman is not just your typical ChatGPT man. The farsightedness of this investor and tech magnate is probably bringing Midas’s Golden touch into whatever he sets his eyes on. Investing in domains that have far-fetched futuristic goals, Altman has a diversified portfolio of investments, betting big on cryptocurrency, longevity research, and the biggest bet of all –  energy. 

“I think the two most important inputs to a great future are abundant intelligence and abundant energy. I have long been interested in the potential that nuclear energy offers to provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy at great scale,” Altman had once said. 

Speaking about a future of “abundant intelligence”, Altman’s plans are beyond AI. Let’s just say, achieving AGI and super-intelligence is in the near future map. Last week, OpenAI announced its plans to achieve super-intelligence alignment within the next four years for which they have allocated 20% of their computing resources. 

A month ago, OpenAI announced  their new process supervision training model which is said to reduce hallucinations and probably help inch closer to AGI. To achieve a fully established AGI, energy computation will be unfathomable. However, Altman’s focus on building that energy will be the beacon that will aid its progress. 

Altman has been dropping hints on his interests for clean energy and has been investing in the field for a while now. From being in the board of directors for a nuclear fission startup to being an investor funding such companies, Altman has a significant stake in energy. Surprisingly, Altman owns zero stake in OpenAI. 

While Altman’s nuclear energy investments may sound as any investor’s route to profitability, there is another path unwinding for the entrepreneur. It’s almost as if Altman is charting a path where his investments in nuclear energy will address any or all of the computation and energy drain associated with training and running large language models. 

Not once has he spoken about OpenAI’s sustainability goals, where his company produces massive carbon footprints for training their GPT models.

Only talks 

On his recent trip to Israel, Altman spoke at the Tel Aviv University about how one can achieve a lot of things if they can figure out “how to make a lot of clean energy cheaply, efficiently capture carbon, and build a factory at a planetary scale to do this”. Even on his India visit, when asked about Helion and energy consumption, his desire to focus on nuclear energy was apparent. He believes that if fusion can work, the cost can become less than 1/10 of current energy and “can be manufactured for the whole planet and for ten years”. 

In a 2021 tweet, Altman predicted that costs of intelligence and energy are headed to a path towards near-zero and that AI revolution along with renewable and nuclear energy will help achieve that. Setting a preface to Altman’s vested interests in nuclear energy, major developments have taken place ever since. 

In exactly two months of that tweet, OpenAI invested $375 million in a nuclear fusion startup Helion Energy, which was considered Altman’s largest investment in a startup till date. Altman’s vision of Helion has been well-defined — generate electricity that is affordable and accessible, and address the climate crisis. Helion wishes to deliver electricity for 1 cent per kilowatt-hour. 

However, this is not the only nuclear company Sam has laid his eyes on. 

Mapping the Intelligence-Energy Synergy

Oklo Inc that designs and deploys advanced fission power plants, led by chairman Sam Altman,  announced the company’s plan to go public through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) AltC Acquisition Corporation where he serves as CEO and director. The company is said to raise $500 million. In a video talking about Oklo, Altman reiterated on how intelligence and energy will go hand-in-hand for a bright future. 

Interestingly, at the start of last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied application from Oklo for building and operating an advanced nuclear reactor Aurora in Idaho citing significant gaps in describing potential accidents and classification of safety systems and components. The environmental impact of LLM has been on the rise with the uptick of generative AI models. Training the GPT-3 model just once consumes 1287 MWh, which is equivalent to supplying an average US household for 120 years. 

Power Consumption (MWh)  for training LLM

Source: Statista

The carbon footprints left by training large large language models run into hundreds of tonnes. In 2022, the carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions produced by GPT-3 was at 502 tonnes. Okla, a nuclear fission microreactor company, is working towards commercialising nuclear fission required for powering nuclear power plants which employ smaller reactors. Helion, on the other hand, is a company that is working towards commercialising nuclear fusion. By having control over both kinds of nuclear energy generation modes, Altman has got sustainability covered. 

In an interview with CNBC, Altman expressed his disagreement with the idea of limited energy availability. He emphasised that advocating for reduced production and consumption of energy usage as means to protect natural resources was undesirable. He believes that nuclear energy is necessary to meet the rising demand as the shift in movement from burning fossil fuels that causes global warming keeps rising. “I don’t see a way for us to get there without nuclear.” 

Towards Clean Energy

With climate conscious goals of working towards reducing carbon footprints and creating sustainable energy sources, several big tech companies are investing in renewable energy startups, especially nuclear energy. Probably, in a bid to address the energy crisis and have a stake in the rising industry, tech players such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and others have invested in the field. 

Bezos’ has invested in a Canadian company General Fusion, which will build a nuclear fusion facility in the UK by 2025. TerraPower, which was founded by Bill Gates in 2008 is opening a nuclear power plant in Wyoming. Microsoft on the other hand has agreed to purchase electricity from Helion by 2028. 

With companies chasing nuclear energy, Altman has been way ahead by creating two paths that will work on symbiosis: AI and energy. By focusing on clean and renewable energy, he is also building a sustainable ecosystem for powering AI models. Who knows? Altman might be the first one to crack the AGI code.