Nuclear fusion will power superhuman AI, says ChatGPT boss

Sam Altman says he believes computing power will become the ‘currency of the future’

The next-generation of artificial intelligence will require a near-limitless source of power, according to the boss of ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

In an in-depth conversation with technologist Lex Fridman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that future AI will require vast amounts of energy as its capabilities improve and it reaches a level that surpasses human intelligence.

The only power source capable of meeting this, according to Mr Altman, is nuclear fusion, which mimics the natural reactions that occur within the Sun to produce energy.

Despite several major breakthroughs in recent years, scientists warn that we are still years away from achieving fusion power on any significant scale.

Mr Altman has previously said that there is “no way to get there without a breakthrough”.

His latest comments elaborated on this belief that a new energy source is needed in order to meet the “tremendous” energy demands of AI.

Mr Altman said that he believed computing power would be the “currency of the future” and will become the most precious commodity in the world.

“Energy is the hardest part,” he said.

“Building data centres is also hard, the supply chain is hard, and then of course fabricating enough chips is hard. But this seems to be where things are going. We’re going to want an amount of compute that’s just hard to reason about right now.”

Mr Altman said nuclear fusion was fundamental for solving the “energy puzzle” of providing the computing power to develop next-generation artificial intelligence.

The OpenAI co-founder, who has a net worth of around $2 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has personally invested $375 million (£295m) in a US-based nuclear fusion firm called Helion Energy.

The company has set a target of producing electricity at a commercial scale using the next-generation technology by 2028. Helion Energy has also secured a purchase agreement for nuclear fusion energy from Microsoft – the world’s first such deal.

“I think Helion’s doing the best work,” Mr Altman told Mr Fridman. “But I’m happy there’s a race for fusion right now.”