OpenAI and the chipmaker AMD announced on Monday that they had signed a multibillion-dollar chip deal that would also give the ChatGPT creator the option to buy a large stake in the chipmaker.
The deal offers OpenAI an opportunity to buy 10% in AMD and marks a major vote of confidence in the company’s AI chips and software. Shares of AMD surged more than 30% and added about $80bn to its market capitalization after the announcement.
“We view this deal as certainly transformative, not just for AMD, but for the dynamics of the industry,” said Forrest Norrod, AMD’s executive vice-president.
The latest deal, among a string of investment commitments, is a testament to OpenAI and the broader AI industry’s voracious appetite for computing power as companies race toward developing AI technology that meets or exceeds human intelligence. Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, has said the biggest constraint on his company’s growth is access to computing power, which comes in the form of enormous datacenters filled with advanced semiconductor chips. Last week, Nvidia announced it would invest $100bn in OpenAI, forging a close alliance between two of the leading firms in artificial intelligence.
Monday’s agreement covers the deployment of hundreds of thousands of AMD’s AI chips, or graphics processing units (GPUs), equivalent to six gigawatts, over several years beginning in the second half of 2026. This is roughly equivalent to the energy needs of 5m US households, or the electricity produced yearly by the Hoover Dam three times over. AMD said OpenAI would build a one-gigawatt facility based on its forthcoming MI450 series of chips beginning next year.
As part of the arrangement, AMD issued a warrant that gives OpenAI the ability to buy up to 160m shares of AMD for 1 cent each over the course of the chips deal.
AMD executives expect the deal to net tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. Because of the ripple effect of the agreement, AMD said it expected to receive more than $100bn in new revenue over four years from OpenAI and other customers.
“Other people are going to come along with it because this is really the pioneer, a pioneer in the industry that has a lot of influence over the broader ecosystem,” Mat Hein, AMD’s strategy chief said.
skip past newsletter promotion
A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
The deal with AMD will help OpenAI build enough AI infrastructure to meet its needs, Altman said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear how OpenAI would fund the huge deal with AMD. The startup, valued at roughly $500bn, has generated about $4.3bn in revenue in the first half of 2025 and has burned through $2.5bn in cash, according to media reports, as it splurges on attracting top talent and invests heavily in developing new AI tools.
