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Artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI is in talks with semiconductor designers including Broadcom to develop new chips as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Nvidia and bolster its supply chain.
The talks are part of an effort spearheaded by the company's co-founder and CEO, Sam Altman, to bolster the supply of components and infrastructure needed to run increasingly powerful AI models.
“The limiting factor for AI is capacity: chip capacity, energy capacity, compute capacity. [OpenAI] Don't just sit back and wait for others to build it. [that] “They're going to face this when they're on the front lines,” said one person with knowledge of OpenAI's plans.
Altman has been working with chipmakers, partners like Microsoft, government agencies and funders to ramp up production capacity and keep his company at the center of a massive boom in the technology that began with the San Francisco company's release of its chatbot, ChatGPT, in late 2022.
The talks between OpenAI and Broadcom, first reported by The Information, center around the role Broadcom will play in developing new chips for OpenAI.
A person familiar with the discussions said the talks were still in their early stages and that OpenAI had “engaged across the industry.”
“OpenAI is in ongoing discussions with industry and government stakeholders about increasing access to the infrastructure needed to make the benefits of AI widely available,” OpenAI said in a statement. “This includes partnering with leading chip designers, manufacturers, and brick-and-mortar developers in data centers.”
Broadcom did not respond to a request for comment.
Powerful semiconductors are one of the hottest commodities for top AI companies: OpenAI, Microsoft and major rivals Antropic and Google rely on cutting-edge graphics processing units, particularly from Nvidia, to train and run their models.
While OpenAI is unlikely to compete with Nvidia's technological prowess anytime soon, the company is exploring different ways to become more autonomous in its pursuit of artificial general intelligence — AI that can outperform humans at a range of cognitive tasks.
Even with backing from Microsoft, which has pledged $13 billion, the startup will need outside funding and commercial partnerships to make its plans a reality, according to a person familiar with the plans.
“It's no exaggeration to say that doing something like this requires huge amounts of money,” the person said.
Additional reporting by Michael Acton in San Francisco
