US artificial intelligence giant OpenAI is expanding its presence in Germany and plans to open a second German site in Berlin, chief executive Sam Altman told the Handelsblatt business newspaper in an interview published on Friday.
OpenAI's only presence to date in Germany is an office in Munich. Altman told the paper that he favours building the company's own data centres in Germany to secure growing demand for AI infrastructure.
The exact opening date for the new Berlin office has not yet been set, but Altman said it would happen soon.
Germany is the biggest market in Europe for OpenAI's ChatGPT service for paying subscribers, according to the company, and it ranks among the global top three.
Altman told the paper that Germany is one of the company's largest and fastest-growing markets. The German economy is making strong use of AI and is a key partner. Altman cited cooperation with Deutsche Telekom as an example.
Alongside expanding its office locations, the company is examining options for building local infrastructure due to rapidly rising demand for computing power needed to run and train modern AI models.
Altman said he had already held talks in Berlin with government representatives about a potential data centre in Germany, but nothing concrete became of that.
The OpenAI chief said countries have ultimately to decide whether they will build their own data centres or rent from other countries, but he hopes Germany will opt for the former solution. Regardless, Germany as a business location is already benefitting from deep integration of modern AI applications, Altman said.