OpenAI and Broadcom in talks about developing new AI chip

OpenAI has been in talks with semiconductor designers including Broadcom about developing a new chip, as the artificial intelligence company looks to ease its reliance on Nvidia and bolster its supply chain.  

The talks are part of efforts spearheaded by the company’s co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman to beef up the supply of components and infrastructure required to run increasingly powerful AI models. 

“The limiting factor of AI is capacity: chip capacity, energy capacity, compute capacity. [OpenAI] is not just going to sit back and let others build [that] when they are on the front line,” said one person with knowledge of OpenAI’s plans. 

Altman has engaged with chipmakers, partners, including Microsoft, government bodies and financial backers in an effort to boost capacity and retain his company’s position at the centre of a massive boom in the technology, which was kicked off by the release of the San Francisco company’s ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022. 

The talks between OpenAI and Broadcom, which were first reported by The Information, have centred on the role Broadcom could play in developing a new chip for OpenAI.

The talks were at an early stage and OpenAI had “engaged across the industry”, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. 

“OpenAI is having ongoing conversations with industry and government stakeholders about increasing access to the infrastructure needed to ensure AI’s benefits are widely accessible,” OpenAI said in a statement. “This includes working in partnership with the premier chip designers, fabricators and the brick and mortar developers of data centres.”

Broadcom did not respond to a request for comment. 

Powerful semiconductors are among the hottest commodities for top AI companies. OpenAI, Microsoft and chief rivals Anthropic and Google are particularly reliant on Nvidia’s cutting-edge graphics processing units to train and run their models. 

OpenAI is unlikely to compete with Nvidia’s technological prowess in the near term, but the company has been exploring a variety of ways to become more self-reliant in its pursuit of artificial general intelligence — AI that can outperform humans across a range of cognitive tasks. 

Even with the backing of Microsoft, which has committed $13bn, the start-up would need outside financial support or commercial partnerships to bring its plans to fruition, according to the person with knowledge of the plans. 

“It’s fair to say it requires massive sums of money to do this stuff,” the person said.

Additional reporting by Michael Acton in San Francisco

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