OpenAI's Altman urges US to expand CHIPS Act tax credit for AI growth (www.reuters.com)

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reiterated the company’s push for the U.S. to broaden eligibility for the CHIPS Act’s Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit (AMIC) to cover AI server production, data centers and grid components. The appeal follows a formal Oct. 27 letter from OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer to the White House OSTP director asking that AMIC — a federal tax incentive aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing — be extended to the physical infrastructure that powers large AI models. Altman clarified on X that this request is distinct from discussions about federal loan guarantees, which OpenAI has explored for chip fabs (not data centers). He also highlighted OpenAI’s pledge to spend $1.4 trillion on compute infrastructure over the next eight years. If enacted, expanding AMIC would materially lower capital costs and accelerate onshore construction of the compute, networking and grid hardware needed for training and serving large models, reducing supply‑chain risk and dependency on foreign fabs. That could hasten capacity growth for model training and inference, encourage domestic chip and data center ecosystems, and affect economics for cloud providers and AI startups. The push comes as demand for advanced chips and data centers surges, but administration officials have signaled limits on federal rescue funding for AI, underscoring the political balance between industrial policy and concerns about subsidizing private AI firms.