Sam Altman predicts AI will soon build robots and data centres on its own

Dubai: Dubai: OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said the world is moving toward a stage where artificial intelligence systems will be able to build and expand their own infrastructure, robots constructing other robots and data centres capable of replicating themselves, marking a new industrial phase of automation.

Speaking virtually at Gitex Global 2025 in Dubai alongside Peng Xiao, Group CEO of Abu Dhabi-based G42, Altman said this shift represents the next frontier of the “gentle singularity” he described earlier this year, when AI begins to take on the physical as well as cognitive work of creation. “Data centres that can build other data centres aren’t that far off,” he said, calling it one of the most under-discussed changes now unfolding in the technology landscape.

Altman said the industry often focuses on AI designing algorithms or generating code, but less on how machines could soon assemble the hardware that sustains their growth. The transition, he noted, would blur the boundary between intelligence and manufacturing, giving rise to self-replicating systems that scale without human supervision.

Peng Xiao linked the concept to G42’s “intelligence grid” vision, a framework that treats AI as a universal utility driving progress across energy, healthcare and governance. “The UAE is going from exporting barrels of oil to distributing intelligence tokens,” he said, adding that intelligence could soon become as abundant and tradeable as energy.

Both executives argued that the cost of intelligence will eventually converge with the cost of energy, making large-scale AI deployment dependent on how nations manage power and data infrastructure. Altman said abundance, not scarcity, must guide the global rollout of AI. “The best way to avoid an AI divide is to make it cheap, available everywhere, and teach people how to use it.”

Gitex Global 2025 gathered more than 6,800 exhibitors in Dubai, emphasising the UAE’s drive to position itself as a centre for AI development and infrastructure investment.