Chairman of Foxconn Younger Liu delivers a speech through the Hon Hai Tech Day in Taipei on Oct. 18, 2023.
I-hwa Cheng | AFP | Getty Photos
The boom in company funding into synthetic intelligence infrastructure still has a way to go as massive language fashions are persevering with to evolve, in accordance to the CEO of Foxconn, a key provider to Apple.
Talking with CNBC’s Emily Tan, Chief Government and Chairman of Foxconn Younger Liu, mentioned that the AI boom “still has some time to go” as superior language fashions from the likes of OpenAI have gotten more and more clever with every new iteration that comes out.
He mentioned that the final motion within the tech trade right now is trending towards a type of AI that’s as clever — if no more clever — than people. This kind of AI is referred to within the trade as “AGI,” or Synthetic Common Intelligence.
“We … heard about AGI, and we’ll discuss completely different ranges of intelligence. If you happen to divide [intelligence] into 4 completely different ranges, we’re at stage two. There’s still stage three and stage 4 to go,” Liu instructed CNBC in an interview that aired Tuesday.
OpenAI is among the main corporations pushing for AGI. Sam Altman, CEO of the Microsoft-backed startup, has beforehand mentioned AGI can be developed within the “fairly close-ish future,” nonetheless he is additionally mentioned he thinks it can “change jobs a lot lower than all of us suppose.”
The corporate, which released its upgraded GPT-4o model this summer time, revealed final week that it had raised $6.6 billion at a $157 billion valuation. OpenAI is still working towards releasing its next-generation LLM, GPT-5, nonetheless it is but to share timing on when the brand new language mannequin will launch.
Liu mentioned that progress towards more and more clever AI can solely be a very good factor for the AI server trade, which has been a key boon to Foxconn’s development this 12 months.
“I feel for the AI server trade, I feel we still have some time to develop,” Liu added. “With the AGI functionality rising, the age [of] AI gadgets can be one other trade we should always watch fastidiously.”
Robust demand for Nvidia’s Blackwell chip
Foxconn, which trades as Hon Hai domestically in China and Taiwan, is the world’s largest contract producer for the electronics trade. The agency produces and assembles Apple merchandise, together with about two out of each three iPhones.
On Saturday, Foxconn said that it reported better-than-expected sales figures. The agency mentioned its revenues got here in at 1.85 trillion Taiwanese {dollars} ($57.5 billion) within the September quarter, up 20.2% year-over-year. That “exceeded the corporate’s unique expectations of serious development,” in accordance to Foxconn.
The robust efficiency got here off the again of heightened demand for AI servers, which Foxconn manufactures for a number of main international tech giants, together with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
The corporate is presently on observe to ship Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell GPU (graphics processing unit), a complicated AI server chip, within the fourth quarter of 2024, Liu instructed CNBC. Blackwell can also be identified below the model title GB200.
Requested concerning the order e book for Blackwell, Liu mentioned that demand for the chip is “significantly better than we thought,” including that the agency is constructing new factories in Mexico to assist service outsized demand for the product.
His feedback tally with what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has mentioned about demand for Blackwell beforehand. Final week, Huang instructed CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime” that demand for Blackwell was “insane.”
“All people desires to have probably the most and everyone desires to be first,” Huang mentioned through the interview, which aired final Wednesday.
Blackwell, anticipated to value between $30,000 and $40,000 per unit, is in scorching demand from corporations like OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta and different corporations constructing AI knowledge facilities to energy merchandise like ChatGPT and Copilot.
AI gadgets the subsequent development alternative
Past producing IT infrastructure for cloud-based AI functions like ChatGPT, Foxconn can also be powering the brand new iPhone 16, which comes with the most recent generative AI options Apple hopes will breathe new life into the smartphone trade.
Foxconn’s Liu mentioned that “on-device” AI — the place knowledge is processed straight on a cellular system, quite than a cloud or server — represents the subsequent substantial development alternative for the corporate.
“I feel the genAI-related system would be the subsequent manner to develop,” Liu instructed CNBC. “At present, we’re seeing this on the cloud aspect. You see that genAI cloud gear was very a lot booming.”
“However within the subsequent part, what we’re seeing would be the Gen AI gadgets,” he added. “We expect that would be the subsequent large manner to boom … Now we have very excessive hopes on these gadgets.”
Still, it is value noting although that Apple hasn’t but launched its AI system, referred to as Apple Intelligence, on iPhone. The corporate is predicted to launch Apple Intelligence to the general public in a beta model later this fall as a part of a brand new software program replace.
Smartphone makers are hoping for a new era of continuous growth for the smartphone industry, identified as a “supercycle,” on the again of the AI options they’re cramming into their newer handsets. Past Apple, Samsung, Google and Huawei spinoff Honor have all gone large on AI with their new telephone launches.
Smartphone gross sales have been gaining momentum this 12 months after a number of consecutive years of declines. Within the second quarter of 2024, smartphone shipments climbed 6.5% year-over-year to 285.4 million items, in accordance to preliminary knowledge from IDC — their fourth straight quarter of development.