OpenAI agrees to buy 'tens of billions' worth of AMD chips
It was only a few weeks ago that NVIDIA pledged a $100 billion investment in OpenAI. Now, OpenAI has come to another agreement, this time with NVIDIA's competitor, AMD. OpenAI has announced a deal to use AMD's chips to create six gigawatts worth of AI infrastructure. AMD expects to make "tens of billions of dollars" from this agreement.
According to OpenAI, AMD will act "as a core strategic compute partner to drive large-scale deployments" of its technology. OpenAI will use AMD's Instinct GPUs, with plans to deploy the first gigawatt of the Instinct MI450 GPUs during the second half of 2026
"AMD’s leadership in high-performance chips will enable us to accelerate progress and bring the benefits of advanced AI to everyone faster," Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, said in a statement.
The deal will also give OpenAI the chance to purchase 160 million AMD shares at a penny each. These shares will vest over time as different milestones are reached — starting with that first one gigawatt deployment. Ultimately, these shares would give OpenAI up to a 10 percent stake in AMD.
Agreements between major AI players are popping up everywhere. In its recent deal with NVIDIA, OpenAI plans to use the former's chips to make at least 10 gigawatts of AI data centers. The $100 billion investment will come in waves timed to each new gigawatt of power. This process should also start during the second half of 2026.
OpenAI is also working with Microsoft on ways to share technology, with the latter having invested over $13 billion in the former — for 49 percent of its profits. Meanwhile, Nvidia recently invested $5 billion in Intel to "seamlessly" connect "the strengths of NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing with Intel’s leading CPU technologies and x86 ecosystem." Intel has also been tasked with creating NVIDIA-custom x86 CPUs for the market and AI infrastructure platforms. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-agrees-to-buy-tens-of-billions-worth-of-amd-chips-134816630.html?src=rss
