OpenAI fired the starting gun for the AI race in late 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT and has since become one of the most valuable startups in the world, reaching hundreds of millions of users every day. Its success, however, has depended on a web of partnerships with other companies that make the silicon chips upon which its AI systems depend. On Wednesday, OpenAI took its biggest step yet towards full technological independence with the unveiling of a new AI chip, dubbed Jalapeño, that it developed in collaboration with U.S. chipmaker Broadcom. In a blog post, the company described Jalapeño as an “Intelligence Processor” and said it moved OpenAI closer to becoming a “full-stack” AI platform, which is industry-speak for controlling the production of all of the hardware and software components necessary to build models and make them accessible to users. Jalapeño is not a GPU—the class of chip made famous by Nvidia and the one most commonly used by tech developers to train and run AI models—but an application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC. As its name suggests, an ASIC is designed to perform more specialized tasks than a GPU, which is more general-purpose.
The post also said that by being able to tap into its own supply of in-house chips, OpenAI would be able to deliver cheaper products and minimize wait times when demand is particularly high. “By designing more of the stack ourselves, we can serve more intelligence with greater efficiency and keep pushing advanced AI toward broader access,” OpenAI president and cofounder Greg Brockman said in a statement. The company currently buys silicon mainly from Nvidia but also has partnerships with Amazon, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Cerebras.
