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Groq Founder, Jonathan Ross: OpenAI & Anthropic Will Build Their Own Chips & Will NVIDIA Hit $10TRN

Jonathan Ross is the Founder & CEO of Groq, the AI chip company redefining inference at scale. Under his leadership, Groq has raised over $3B from top investors. The company has reached a valuation of nearly $7B, positioning itself as one of NVIDIA’s most formidable challengers. Previously at Google, Jonathan led the team that built the first Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), making him one of the leading architects of modern AI hardware. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:10 Analyzing the Current Market Landscape 03:33 Why the Hyperscalers Have to Keep Spending Recklessly on AI 12:35 Why OpenAI and Anthropic Will Have to Build Their Own Chips 18:14 OpenAI and Anthropic Will be $5BN Companies: The Bull Case 28:20 Why China is Behind the US in AI and Deepseek is More Expensive to Run 34:37 How Europe Could Compete in AI and Why the US is More Risk Averse Than Europe 37:21 Why We Have to Have Nuclear Energy and How to Bring it Back 48:16 Deflationary Pressures and New Job Markets 51:54 The Future of Vibe Coding 53:40 Why AI Companies Should Strive to Have Low Margins 58:46 S&P 7000, Mag 7 & Market Choppiness 01:06:44 Why OpenAI and Anthropic are so Undervalued 01:13:35 The Chip Market in 5 Years 01:21:51 Quick-Fire Round: Biggest Fear, Nvidia: $10TRN, Zuck Buying AI: Work or Not ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on X: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Jonathan Ross on X: https://twitter.com/JonathanRoss321 Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #jonathanross #groq #ceo #openai #anthropic #chips #nvidia #nuclearenergy #vibecoding

Jonathan RossguestHarry Stebbingshost
Sep 28, 20251h 31mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Groq’s Jonathan Ross: Compute, Chips, and Energy Will Dictate AI’s Future

  1. Jonathan Ross argues that AI is still in its early, value-creating phase, with insatiable demand for compute and a structural shortage of GPUs and energy. He believes hyperscalers and AI labs are rationally overspending because compute directly translates into better products, more revenue, and long‑term strategic survival. Ross predicts NVIDIA will remain dominant and could exceed a $10T valuation, even as OpenAI, Anthropic, and others build their own chips and alternative inference architectures like Groq’s emerge. He warns that nations and companies that fail to secure cheap energy and abundant compute—especially Europe—risk becoming economic backwaters in an AI-driven global economy.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Stop asking if AI is a bubble; follow where committed capital and hyperscalers are going.

Ross says major tech firms and nations are repeatedly increasing AI CapEx and already seeing real returns (e.g., Microsoft earning more by using GPUs internally than renting them out), suggesting durable value despite lumpy outcomes and speculative noise.

Compute is the binding constraint for leading AI labs, not demand.

He claims that if OpenAI or Anthropic doubled their inference compute, their revenue would almost double within a month, because today they are limited by rate caps, latency management, and lack of capacity—not by user willingness to pay.

Speed and low latency are deep economic moats, not UX niceties.

Drawing on CPG and web metrics, Ross notes that faster responses correlate with higher margins and conversions; making models instant or near-instant increases engagement, brand affinity, and competitive differentiation.

Vertical integration into chips is about supply security more than beating NVIDIA on performance.

OpenAI, Anthropic, and hyperscalers want their own chips largely to control allocation and de-risk NVIDIA’s HBM bottleneck and monopsony, even if their chips are slightly worse or more expensive, because predictability of supply is strategically invaluable.

Energy policy will determine which countries lead in AI.

Ross insists that ‘countries that control compute will control AI’ and compute is impossible without abundant, cheap energy; he argues allies could out‑energy China by siting data centers where renewables and nuclear are plentiful, but Europe in particular is moving too slowly.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

The countries that control compute will control AI, and you cannot have compute without energy.

Jonathan Ross

I would be surprised if in five years NVIDIA wasn’t worth 10 trillion.

Jonathan Ross

If OpenAI or Anthropic were given twice the inference compute they have today, within one month their revenue would almost double.

Jonathan Ross

CUDA lock‑in is bullshit. It’s true for training, but it’s not true for inference.

Jonathan Ross

LLMs are the telescope of the mind… right now they make us feel really small, but we’ll eventually realize intelligence is more vast than we imagined—and think that’s beautiful.

Jonathan Ross

Whether AI is a bubble versus how value and ‘smart money’ behaveNVIDIA’s dominance, GPU supply constraints, and future AI chip landscapeOpenAI, Anthropic, and hyperscalers building their own chips and vertical stacksThe central role of energy and national strategy in controlling compute and AIInference economics: speed, latency, cost per token, and supply constraintsGlobal competition: US vs China vs Europe in compute, energy, and modelsMacroeconomic impact of AI on labor, deflation, and new job creation

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