OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, January 11, 2024. Photo: Kent Nishimura (Getty Images)
in this story
OpenAI is undoubtedly the winner of the current artificial intelligence boom. And now it’s reportedly developing its own chip to help fuel that growth.
CEO says audience will be the main beneficiary of AI in the media industry
ChatGPT maker is working with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM +1.27%) and Broadcom (AVGO +4.20%) to produce its own in-house AI chips as infrastructure demand grows, Reuters The news agency reported this, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. It is also reportedly adding AI chips from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD+3.93%) to diversify its supply from NVIDIA (NVDA+0.55%).
The company is reportedly looking at ways to diversify its chip supply and reduce costs, including raising capital for its network of chip manufacturing factories. But instead of plans for foundries (which it has scrapped for now), OpenAI is focusing on designing its own chips in-house, Reuters reported.
OpenAI has been working with Broadcom for several months on its first in-house chip for AI inference, people told Reuters, and is now in high demand for AI training chips. But he added that analysts expect AI inference to ultimately take the lead. Post-training inference is the process by which a trained AI model makes predictions from new data.
Two people told Reuters that OpenAI is still deciding whether to develop or acquire other capabilities for its AI chips and may find more chip manufacturing partners. Reuters reported that OpenAI was able to establish manufacturing capabilities with TSMC through a partnership with Broadcom. It has been reported that the Taiwanese chipmaker could have OpenAI’s first custom-designed chip by 2026, but that is not certain.
OpenAI, TSMC, and Broadcom did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In September, OpenAI released a series of “reasoning” AI models that it says are “designed to give people more time to think before responding.” OpenAI closed a $6.6 billion funding round earlier this month, valuing the company at $157 billion.
