What's up: OpenAI, AMD announce massive computing deal; Elon Musk gambles billions to catch up on AI; investors are chasing AGI, but it could go all wrong.

Good morning. We have been saying for some time that companies are going to have to rethink their approach to work, leadership and organization to keep pace with AI. And it’s happening. Standard Chartered is now well down that path, creating a model for how abstract ideas about the new workplace can take shape in reality.

The global bank and financial services company based in London has created a system that allows employees to come together on an ad hoc basis for projects that may have little or nothing to do with the job for which they were hired, the WSJ Leadership Institute’s Isabelle Bousquette reports. Employees still have job titles and descriptions, but within the firm they are acting more like gig workers.

“The idea of a traditional job being a currency of work is going to become less and less relevant,” Tanuj Kapilashrami, the bank’s chief strategy and talent officer, told Isabelle. “You don’t have to think of an individual by the job title or the job description, but you think of an individual as a collection of skills.”

Rewire the whole company. That was an important topic at last month’s WSJ Leadership Institute’s Technology Council Summit in New York, where participants onstage and off cited concerns over a misalignment between the way traditional corporate org charts stratify skills and getting the most out of AI.

“We’re going to have to rewire the whole company,” Sastry Durvasula, chief operating, information and digital officer at financial services organization TIAA, said at the event. “Every role, what do they do? What’s the workforce of the future?” He added, “I believe that 80% of the jobs will change at least 20% by AI. And 20% of the jobs will change as much as 80%.”

Technology emphasizes the individual contributor. AI is reducing the need for middle managers. “You’ve got a lot more [individual contributors], and you’ve got some leaders that have a lot more [individual contributors] directly reporting to them, Apoorv Agrawal, a partner at technology-focused investment firm Altimeter Capital, said last month. Agrawal and others underscored how people from different reporting structures will come together on a project and move on to another one.

Tracey Franklin, who was appointed to the newly created role of chief people and digital technology officer at Moderna, said at the event that she’s been reworking teams around the capabilities and skills of humans and AI working together.

A talent marketplace for employees. At Standard Chartered, a more flexible approach—mediated by an in-house "talent marketplace"—is critical to redeploying human capital that can be far more productive with AI tools, as well as speeding the pace of new AI deployments, according to Kapilashrami.

“The idea of a traditional job being a currency of work is going to become less and less relevant,” she said. “You don’t have to think of an individual by the job title or the job description, but you think of an individual as a collection of skills.”

How is your company redesigning work to keep up with AI? Use the links at the end of this newsletter and let us know.

In today's newsletter: The AI race is the most expensive corporate battle of the 21st century, transforming industries, workplaces and even physical landscapes. Read on.

OpenAI and chip-designer Advanced Micro Devices have struck a multibillion-dollar deal to jointly build AI data centers powered by AMD’s chips. The WSJ calls the partnerships one of the most direct challenges yet to industry leader Nvidia.

Under the agreement, OpenAI commits to purchasing enough chips to deliver 6 gigawatts of computing power over time, starting with the MI450 chip next year. The two companies didn’t disclose the plan’s expected overall cost, but AMD said it costs tens of billions of dollars per gigawatt of computing capacity.

OpenAI plans to use the AMD chips for inference functions or the computations that allow AI applications such as chat bots to respond to user queries.

“It’s hard to overstate how difficult it’s become” to get enough computing power, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said in a joint interview with AMD CEO Lisa Su. “We want it super fast, but it takes some time.”

Meanwhile, OpenAI is simultaneously forging major deals with Oracle, Nvidia and others, pushing massive investments into computing capacity.

OpenAI’s hunger for computing power has Altman dashing around the globe

In the runup to the AMD announcement, Altman was busy securing capital and manufacturing partnerships across East Asia and the Middle East, WSJ reports.

Meanwhile, down in Memphis, Tenn.

Elon Musk’s investments in a pair of data center complexes, Colossus I and Colossus II, illustrate how power infrastructure is becoming a battleground in AI.

In August, xAI filed an application for a permit to eventually have 41 permanent natural-gas turbines in nearby Southaven, Miss., that could generate over a gigawatt of power.

AI investors are chasing AGI. It could go all wrong.

Investors are pouring billions into artificial intelligence in pursuit of artificial general intelligence, a system that could match or surpass human intelligence.

Yet major risks loom. History shows that paradigm shifts take longer and are rarely predictable, notes WSJ Streetwise columnist James Mackintosh. Case in point: AI pioneer Marvin Minsky told Life magazine that true AGI was three to eight years away—in 1970.

For European AI startups, it is all about following the money (to California)

The Journal's Anvee Bhutani reports how European AI startups are increasingly turning to the U.S. to raise capital, citing faster deal velocity, larger checks and more risk-tolerant investors. American VCs have spent about $14.2 billion on European AI and machine-learning deals so far this year, PitchBook data show.

It's about access to capital and the regulatory environment. Investors in Europe tend to proceed more cautiously, with longer due diligence, smaller rounds, and lower valuations. Plus looming rules under the EU’s AI Act create uncertainty and compliance costs. 

It's not about talent. European talent is doing quite well. The continent's software engineering workforce has a per capita share of AI specialists that is 30% higher than in the U.S. and nearly three times greater than in China, according to data from Sequoia Capital.

👉 ICYMI: Arthur Mensch, co-founder and chief executive of Mistral, Europe's top AI firm, talked with the WSJ Leadership Institute's Isabelle Bousquette about plans to boost its enterprise work. 

Getting the bubble vibes? 

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said that yes, AI is in an "industrial bubble," but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

“The [bubbles] that are industrial are not nearly as bad, it can even be good, because when the dust settles and you see who are the winners, societies benefit from those inventions,” Bezos said onstage Friday at Italian Tech Week in Turin, according to CNBC. To back up his point, he cited bubbles in biotech and pharmaceuticals in the 1990s, which helped lead to important drugs.

Bloomberg spotlights John Ternus, Apple's hardware engineering chief, as a leading candidate to succeed Tim Cook as CEO. While no formal transition is in motion, Ternus is seen favorably due to his long experience at Apple and his role overseeing development of key products like iPads and Macs.

Days after raising $1.1 billion at a valuation of $8.1 billion in a private funding round, AI infrastructure company Cerebras said it was withdrawing its plans for an IPO, CNBC reports. The company originally filed to go public last year.

The federal government shutdown is dragging toward its second week in a partisan staring contest, lacking for now the political or practical consequences that would create enough pressure to break the impasse. (WSJ)

A federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the deployment of any National Guard under the Trump administration’s control inside Oregon in an emergency hearing Sunday night. (WSJ)

Federal agents in Chicago made arrests in tourist areas, they conducted a massive nighttime raid on a South Side apartment building, and they skirmished with protesters outside a migrant processing facility and on city streets. Illinois Democrats say the show of force is meant to intimidate and instill fear. (WSJ)

The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.