OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has announced the plans of entering into the space race with the idea of a new venture in a bid to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Altman is exploring a funding deal to acquire or partner with a rocket company, positioning himself as a potential rival to SpaceX.
As per the sources privy to the venture, the CEO reached out to Stoke Space, rocket maker in the summer.
Altman proposed for a controlling stake by making a series of equity investments in the company. However, the discussions ended without a productive outcome as per report.
Stoke Space is a rocket startup which was founded by former Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin’s employees. The company primarily deals with fully reusable rockets.
Besides launching rocket venture plans, Altman also has expressed desire to build data centers in space in order to fulfil energy demands driven by the artificial intelligence boom.
Altman recently said on a podcast with Theo Von, “I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time. Like, maybe we build a big Dyson sphere around the solar system and say, “Hey, it actually makes no sense to put these on Earth.”
The idea of building data centers is gaining popularity among the tech companies and moguls.
Tech CEOs, including Musk, Bezos, and Google’s Sundar Pichai have proposed the possibility of building AI computing clusters in deep space.
To materialize this possibility, Alphabet’s Google and satellite operators Planet Labs signed a deal to send two prototype satellites equipped with Google AI chips on board in 2027.
In the midst of venture planning, OpenAI’s revenue projections are not promising at all. The company is set to make $13 billion in revenue this year.
On top of that, OpenAI has recently issued “red code” in an effort to improve ChatGPT as Google’s Gemini 3 AI model has taken a lead in the artificial intelligence race.
Moreover, Anthropic, a model popular among the businesses and coders, is also giving hard competition to OpenAI.
As per company’s financial projection, the ChatGPT maker should spend aggressively to grow its revenue to nearly $200 billion to turn a profit in 2030.
Altman has refuted these claims regarding finances on the grounds of expanding ChatGPT’s user base of more than 800 million weekly.
