Sam Altman needs compute and will do whatever it takes to get it.
OpenAI just inked another multibillion-dollar deal.
The AI giant is buying 6 gigawatts and billions of dollars worth of Nvidia-rival chipmaker AMD’s latest generation chips to power its next-generation AI infrastructure.
AMD unveiled its next-generation Instinct chips at a launch event in July, when CEO Lisa Su took the stage with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to announce that the AI giant would use the new chips.
The first 1 gigawatt of that deployment is set to begin in the second half of 2026. As OpenAI hits deployment targets, it will also gradually receive a total of 160 million AMD shares at 1 cent each, which translates to a roughly 10% stake in the chipmaker.
Nvidia is still the leader in the global chip industry, but AMD is its closest rival in the U.S., and Thursday’s deal gives the company a huge advantage in its efforts to compete.
The financials of the deal were not disclosed, but AMD chief financial officer Jean Hu said in the press release that the partnership was “expected to deliver tens of billions of dollars in revenue for AMD while accelerating OpenAI’s AI infrastructure buildout.
