Hon Hai could roll out AI hardware in Ohio under a deal with OpenAI

Taipei, Nov. 22 (CNA) Taiwan-based manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. is likely to roll out hardware for artificial intelligence infrastructure in the U.S. state of Ohio under a deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI, according to the chairman of the Taiwanese firm.

Speaking at a news conference on Friday, the first day of the annual Hon Hai Tech Day, Young Liu (劉揚偉) said that with its partnership with OpenAI to build the next generation AI infrastructure in the United States, the Taiwanese partner aims to conduct research and development in San Jose, California initially, before moving to Ohio for production.

Hon Hai's website showed that Ohio serves as one of its major production sites in the U.S. with a manufacturing compound set up in 2022.

According to Liu, Hon Hai sold a part of its land and a factory previously used in electric vehicle production in Ohio to Japan's IT giant SoftBank, but transformed the Ohio complex into developing AI data centers.

Earlier on Friday, Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn globally, unveiled a deal with OpenAI, focusing on "design work and U.S. manufacturing readiness for the next generation of AI infrastructure hardware."

The partnership will also emphasize developing data center hardware, strengthening and simplifying U.S. AI supply chain hardware, and building critical AI data center components in the U.S.

Liu said Hon Hai made significant progress in cooperation with OpenAI, confirming the U.S. firm's CEO Sam Altman visited Taiwan earlier this year, and during a meeting, Altman agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in one month, paving the way for the Friday announcement.

Liu described OpenAI as the largest user of Generative AI (GenAI) applications and the company has built tremendous experience in the field, and its know-how is expected to develop a plan to build the next-generation AI data centers.

Liu said Hon Hai and OpenAI have been in intensive discussions on AI data centers, including cooling system development for data center use.

The initial agreement does not include purchase commitments or financial obligations, Hon Hai said, OpenAI will have early access to evaluate these systems and an option to purchase these devices.

In addition to the U.S. market, Liu said Hon Hai is also working with SoftBank and Japanese telecom services provider KDDI on AI data center development in Japan.

Hon Hai on Friday also announced it is setting up a joint venture with Alphabet's Intrinsic to build an AI robotics factory of the future.

● Hon Hai to build Nvidia GB300-powered data center in Taiwan next year

The planned factory will focus on AI-enabled robotics, which Hon Hai said hold enormous potential for the manufacturing sector and production because they will make operations more flexible, adaptive and cost effective.

In Taiwan, Hon Hai said it will build a data center in the first half of 2026 using Nvidia's new GB300 NVL72 platform, positioning the facility as the country's largest AI supercomputing hub.

In recent years, Hon Hai has aggressively diversified its business under its "3 plus 3" strategy to expand into integrated hardware and software.

The initiative covers three emerging industries -- electric vehicles, robots, and digital health care -- which the company said is developing via AI, semiconductor, and communications technologies, with EVs as the core business.