OpenAI teams up with AMD in multibillion-dollar deal to expand AI compute capacity

OpenAI has forged a significant alliance with AMD aimed at enhancing the computing resources necessary for its AI models. This partnership, revealed on Monday, involves the deployment of 6 gigawatts of GPUs, with AMD’s Instinct MI450 chips set to kick off in the latter half of 2026. OpenAI President Greg Brockman highlighted the initiative's urgency, pointing to the surging global demand for AI infrastructure. "We need as much computing power as we can possibly get, and I think the whole industry right now is trying to really adapt to the amount of demand for AI services that we see coming over the next couple of years," he stated in an interview with CNBC. Brockman has previously articulated OpenAI's ambition to eventually provide each user with their own GPU, a vision that necessitates a vast expansion of computing resources. "What we’re really seeing is a world where there’s going to be absolute compute scarcity, because there’s going to be so much demand for AI services and not just from OpenAI, really from the whole ecosystem," he noted. This development comes on the heels of repeated discussions among OpenAI executives regarding the critical need for enhanced computing capabilities. CFO Sarah Friar emphasized that the company’s biggest hurdle is being "constantly under compute." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman remarked, "This partnership is a major step in building the compute capacity needed to realize AI’s full potential. AMD’s leadership in high-performance chips will enable us to accelerate progress and bring the benefits of advanced AI to everyone faster." While OpenAI maintains a robust collaboration with Nvidia—who recently announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in the company—Brockman indicated that working with AMD is essential for expanding their computational capacity. "I think that Nvidia has something very special. We use them for training, we use them for inference. AMD, I think, also is really delivering in terms of the next generation of chip that they’ve been working on," he explained. Under the new agreement, AMD has issued OpenAI a warrant for up to 160 million shares of AMD stock, contingent on specific performance milestones. AMD CEO Lisa Su commented on the long-term vision of the partnership, noting, "The idea is that as OpenAI deploys compute, that’s a huge benefit to AMD in terms of the number, the amount of revenue that we get from that. Every gigawatt of compute is significant, double-digit billions of revenue to us." Following the announcement, AMD's stock saw a significant increase, surging by over 38 percent in early trading on Monday.