OpenAI plans Google chip purchase to expand computing capacity

OpenAI intends to buy AI computing chips from Alphabet’s Google as it expands its infrastructure, according to a person familiar with the private discussions. Final terms of any agreement remain unknown, and both companies declined to comment. The potential purchase is part of a broader effort to add processing capacity while developing alternatives to Nvidia’s dominant chips.

OpenAI has already announced plans to begin using its own processors to support its AI models later this year. Those chips, called Jalapeno, were developed with Broadcom and help from Google veterans. Richard Ho, who leads OpenAI’s internal chip team, previously worked on Google’s tensor processing units, or TPUs.

Google initially developed TPUs to accelerate its search engine and improve efficiency, but the processors later proved useful for AI workloads. They have since emerged as an alternative to Nvidia’s graphics processing units. Oracle also announced on Tuesday that TPUs would become available through its cloud infrastructure, extending access to Google’s processors.