Tech Voices: Trump on chip tariffs, Intel, OpenAI's buildout plans

[Intel Headquarters]
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_Seeking Alpha's roundup of statements, announcements and remarks that could impact the technology sector._

* President Trump said the administration may impose a tariff of up to 300% on semiconductors.

“I’ll be setting tariffs next week and the week after, on steel and on, I would, say chips — chips and semiconductors, we’ll be setting sometime next week, week after,” Trump told reporters on Friday, according to Bloomberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-15/trump-says-semiconductor-tariffs-coming-soon-could-reach-300?sref=Hh2p8mzs].

The news outlet added that Trump suggested the rate could be 200% to 300%.

* Trump is also considering using monies allocated under the CHIPS Act to pay for a government stake in troubled chipmaker Intel (NASDAQ:INTC [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/INTC]), according to Bloomberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-15/trump-administration-eyeing-chips-act-funds-for-intel-stake?srnd=homepage-americas&sref=Hh2p8mzs], which cited unnamed sources familiar with the negotiations.

Bloomberg said it's unclear if the deal would involve converting CHIP grants already awarded to Intel into equity or some other type of financing.

The news outlet also said that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is expected to stay on as CEO.

Speculation had been brewing about whether he'd step down as CEO [https://seekingalpha.com/news/4485008-sa-roundtable-should-intel-ceo-lip-bu-tan-step-down] after Trump accused him of being "higly conflicted" by alleged ties to Chinese companies.

* OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he sees the company spending trillions of dollars to build out its data center infrastructure and technology.

“You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars…[in the] not very distant future,” Altman said during a meeting with reporters, according to Bloomberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-15/openai-s-altman-expects-to-spend-trillions-on-infrastructure?srnd=phx-technology&sref=Hh2p8mzs]. “And you should expect a bunch of economists to wring their hands and say, ‘This is so crazy, it’s so reckless, and whatever. And we’ll just be like, ‘You know what? Let us do our thing.’”

Altman also discussed how OpenAI could secure funding for the massive build out.

“I suspect we can design a very interesting new kind of financial instrument for finance and compute that the world has not yet figured it out,” Altman said. “We’re working on it.”

Microsoft (MSFT [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/MSFT]) is a major investor in OpenAI and reportedly entitled to 49% of the profits generated by its for-profit unit, OpenAI Global.

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* Tech Voices: U.S. eyeing Intel stake, Cohere, Hinton on AI safeguards [https://seekingalpha.com/news/4485684-tech-voices-us-eyeing-intel-stake-cohere-hinton-on-ai-safeguards]