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OpenAI has been talking to semiconductor designers similar to Broadcom about developing a brand new chip as the unreal intelligence company looks to cut back its reliance on Nvidia and strengthen its supply chain.
The talks are a part of an effort led by the corporate's co-founder and CEO, Sam Altman, to bolster the availability of components and infrastructure needed to run increasingly powerful AI models.
“The limiting factor of AI is capability: chip capability, power capability, compute capability. (OpenAI) isn’t going to only sit back and let others construct it in the event that they are on the forefront,” said an individual with knowledge of OpenAI's plans.
Altman has worked with chipmakers, partners – including Microsoft – government agencies and financiers to extend capability and maintain his company's position at the middle of a large boom within the technology, sparked by the discharge of the San Francisco company's ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022.
The talks between OpenAI and Broadcom, first reported by The Information, focused on the role Broadcom could play in developing a brand new chip for OpenAI.
The talks were still at an early stage and OpenAI was “industry-wide engaged,” based on an individual accustomed to the discussions.
“OpenAI is in ongoing discussions with industry and government stakeholders to enhance access to the infrastructure needed to make sure the advantages of AI are widely accessible,” OpenAI said in a press release. “This includes working with the leading chip designers, manufacturers and data center developers.”
Broadcom didn’t reply to a request for comment.
High-performance semiconductors are amongst essentially the most coveted commodities for leading AI corporations. OpenAI, Microsoft, and important competitors Anthropic and Google are particularly depending on Nvidia's cutting-edge graphics processors to coach and run their models.
OpenAI is unlikely to give you the option to compete with Nvidia's technological prowess any time soon, but the corporate is already exploring various ways to grow to be more independent in its pursuit of artificial general intelligence – AI that may outperform humans on a spread of cognitive tasks.
Even with the support of Microsoft, which has pledged $13 billion, the startup would want outside financial support or industrial partnerships to appreciate its plans, based on an individual accustomed to the plans.
“It's fair to say that this stuff require enormous amounts of cash,” the person said.
