OpenAI, AMD announce major partnership to expand AI infra
The deal marks a further deepening of ties between chipmakers and AI companies amid soaring global demand for computing power driven by artificial intelligence.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI and chipmaker AMD have announced a major long-term partnership that will see up to six gigawatts of computing capacity deployed to power OpenAI’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
The deal, which begins with a one-gigawatt rollout of AMD’s forthcoming Instinct MI450 GPUs in 2026, signals how chipmakers and AI developers are tightening their alliances to meet growing demand for large-scale compute infrastructure.
A fortnight ago, tech giant NVIDIA announced it would invest as much as $100 billion in OpenAI as part of a plan to roll out new systems for the company’s next wave of AI infrastructure.
The AMD–OpenAI agreement builds on years of collaboration between the two companies, extending from AMD’s MI300X and MI350X processors to future generations of hardware.
AMD will serve as a strategic compute partner, supplying high-performance GPUs and rack-scale AI systems while working closely with OpenAI to align hardware and software development.
Dr Lisa Su, Chair and CEO of AMD, said, “This partnership brings the best of AMD and OpenAI together to create a true win-win, enabling the world’s most ambitious AI buildout and advancing the entire AI ecosystem.”
As part of the partnership, AMD has granted OpenAI a warrant for up to 160 million shares of its stock. These shares will vest gradually as OpenAI achieves technical and commercial milestones tied to scaling deployments up to the full six-gigawatt target.
OpenAI’s co-founder and chief executive, Sam Altman, said, “This partnership is a major step in building the compute capacity needed to realise AI’s full potential.”
AMD’s executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, Jean Hu, described the deal as one that is “expected to deliver tens of billions of dollars in revenue for AMD”, underscoring its significance for the company’s growth and investor outlook.
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Strategic alliances
The announcement follows a string of similar deals across the technology sector. In recent years, AI developers and chipmakers have increasingly partnered to secure the computational resources required for training and deploying large-scale models.
Microsoft’s extended partnership with OpenAI, NVIDIA’s collaborations with Anthropic and Google DeepMind, and Amazon Web Services’ work with Stability AI and Hugging Face all reflect a common strategy. These alliances give AI firms access to specialised chips and optimised data centre infrastructure, while ensuring hardware manufacturers can anchor demand for their latest technologies.
As the AI arms race accelerates, securing reliable access to high-performance hardware has become a central competitive advantage.
Together, these partnerships represent an effort to establish the infrastructure backbone of AI: vast networks of chips, servers and energy capacity capable of supporting ever-larger models.
“Building the future of AI requires deep collaboration across every layer of the stack,” remarked Greg Brockman, Co-founder and President of OpenAI.
Edited by Kanishk Singh