Foxconn chairman states AI boom still has time to go as LLMs advance

The boom in company financial investment right into expert system framework still has some method to go as big language designs are remaining to advance, according to the chief executive officer of Foxconn, a crucial provider to Apple.

Speaking with’s Emily Tan, Chief Executive and Chairman of Foxconn Young Liu, claimed that the AI boom “still has some time to go” as sophisticated language designs from the similarity OpenAI are coming to be progressively smart with each brand-new model that appears.

He claimed that the basic motion in the technology sector today is trending towards a type of AI that is as smart– otherwise even more smart– than human beings. This kind of AI is described in the sector as “AGI,” or Artificial General Intelligence.

“We … heard about AGI, and we’ll talk about different levels of intelligence. If you divide [intelligence] into four different levels, we’re at level two. There’s still level three and level four to go,” Liu informed in a meeting that broadcast Tuesday.

OpenAI is among the leading business promoting AGI. Sam Altman, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER of the Microsoft- backed start-up, has actually formerly claimed AGI will certainly be established in the “reasonably close-ish future,” nonetheless he’s likewise claimed he assumes it will certainly “change jobs much less than we all think.”

The business, which launched its updated GPT-4o version this summer season, exposed recently that it had actually elevated $6.6 billion at a $157 billion assessment. OpenAI is still pursuing launching its next-generation LLM, GPT-5, nonetheless it’s yet to share timing on when the brand-new language version will certainly release.

Liu claimed that progression towards progressively smart AI can just be an advantage for the AI web server sector, which has actually been a crucial benefit to Foxconn’s development this year.

“I think for the AI server industry, I think we still have some time to grow,” Liu included. “With the AGI capability growing, the age [of] AI devices will be another industry we should watch carefully.”

Foxconn, which trades as Hon Hai in your area in China and Taiwan, is the globe’s biggest agreement maker for the electronic devices sector. The company generates and constructs Apple products, including about two out of every three iPhones.

On Saturday, Foxconn said that it reported better-than-expected sales figures. The firm said its revenues came in at 1.85 trillion Taiwanese dollars ($57.5 billion) in the September quarter, up 20.2% year-over-year. That “exceeded the company’s original expectations of significant growth,” according to Foxconn.

The strong performance came off the back of heightened demand for AI servers, which Foxconn manufactures for several major global tech giants, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia.

The company is currently on track to ship Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell GPU (graphics processing unit), an advanced AI server chip, in the fourth quarter of 2024, Liu told . Blackwell is also known under the brand name GB200.

Asked about the order book for Blackwell, Liu said that demand for the chip is “much better than we thought,” adding that the firm is building new factories in Mexico to help service outsized demand for the product.

His comments tally with what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said about demand for Blackwell previously. Last week, Huang told ‘s “Closing Bell Overtime” that demand for Blackwell was “insane.”

“Everybody wants to have the most and everybody wants to be first,” Huang said during the interview, which aired last Wednesday.

Blackwell, expected to cost between $30,000 and $40,000 per unit, is in hot demand from companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta and other firms building AI data centers to power products like ChatGPT and Copilot.

Beyond producing IT infrastructure for cloud-based AI applications like ChatGPT, Foxconn is also powering the new iPhone 16, which comes with the latest generative AI features Apple hopes will breathe new life into the smartphone industry.

Foxconn’s Liu said that “on-device” AI — where data is processed directly on a mobile device, rather than a cloud or server — represents the next substantial growth opportunity for the company.

“I think the genAI-related device will be the next way to grow,” Liu told . “Currently, we’re seeing this on the cloud side. You see that genAI cloud equipment was very much booming.”

“But in the next phase, what we’re seeing will be the Gen AI devices,” he added. “We think that will be the next big way to boom … We have very high hopes on those devices.”

Still, it’s worth noting though that Apple hasn’t yet released its AI system, called Apple Intelligence, on iPhone. The company is expected to release Apple Intelligence to the public in a beta version later this fall as part of a new software update.

Smartphone makers are hoping for a new era of continuous growth for the smartphone industry, known as a “supercycle,” on the back of the AI features they’re cramming into their newer handsets. Beyond Apple, Samsung, Google and Huawei spinoff Honor have all gone big on AI with their new phone launches.

Smartphone sales have been gaining momentum this year after several consecutive years of declines. In the second quarter of 2024, smartphone shipments climbed 6.5% year-over-year to 285.4 million units, according to preliminary data from IDC — their fourth straight quarter of growth.