OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said he sees a potential “mega supply chain disruption” as one of the biggest potential problems for the AI industry.
He made the comments on Tuesday during an appearance at Cisco's 2026 AI Summit.
Mr Altman, who was interviewed by Cisco's president Jeetu Patel, was answering a question about some of the biggest benefits and challenges facing the sector.
“For headwinds, probably some sort of global destabilisation, mega supply chain disruption,” he told Mr Patel.
Mr Altman's appearance at Cisco's AI Summit, comes after a turbulent few days of media reports that criticised the maker of ChatGPT.
The company found itself on the defensive with several media outlets suggested that AI chip giant Nvidia was reconsidering a much-touted $100 billion partnership.
A recent video interview in which Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang appeared frustrated did not help matters.
“We never said we were going to invest $100 billion in one round,” Mr Huang said, after a reporter asked him about the partnership with OpenAI.
“Let's start over again, they invited us to invest up to $100 billion … but we'll invest one step at time.”
At the same time, cloud computing and database firm Oracle unnerved its investors by making a rare comment related to the Nvidia report.
“The Nvidia-OpenAl deal has zero impact on our financial relationship with OpenAl,” the company posted on X. “We remain highly confident in OpenAl's ability to raise funds and meet its commitments.”
That statement was shared more than 1,000 times on X, and received more than 900 comments, many of them from critics who expressed scepticism.
“Why are you guys commenting a third party deal that shouldn't really have to impact you … unless it's, you know, impacting you?” wrote a user.
“To me, this smacks of desperation,” posted another.
On Monday evening, Mr Altman also addressed a report from Reuters which suggested that OpenAI was unhappy with the performance of Nvidia's chips.
“I don't get where all this insanity is coming from,” he posted on X, insisting that OpenAI “loved working” with the chip design company.
Recent reports about some of the most influential technology companies in the US, coupled with the reaction from those firms, reinforced concerns from some that the burgeoning AI sector may be on the brink of a bubble.
At Cisco's AI event on Tuesday, Mr Patel did not ask Mr Altman about any of the recent stories that have spooked some investors and technology analysts.
Instead, topics of discussion focused on infrastructure, the potential advancements of large language models as well as OpenAI's Codex platform for building agents.
As for some of the biggest benefits that Mr Altman sees for the overall AI sector, he told Mr Patel that many were underestimating how much language models will improve.
“The models are going to get so much better quickly,” he said. “We've been trying to figure out how we can communicate about what we think is happening.” He insisted that this was not just hype.
Mr Altman's concerns about supply chains are not unique among those in the technology sector or, for that matter, elected officials in the US.
In recent months, the administration of President Donald Trump has sought to protect what many have described as the country's lead in the AI race by creating a more stable supply chain through Pax Silica, an alliance of countries that it hopes will strengthen the durability of supply chains.
