Broadcom and OpenAI just pulled the wrapping off Jalapeño, a custom AI inference chip designed to power the kind of large language model queries that keep ChatGPT humming along. The chip emerged from a partnership that kicked off in October 2025, and early samples are already being tested.
Broadcom’s stock is sitting roughly 24% below its early 2026 highs, a gap that opened after disappointing AI revenue guidance on June 4. A shiny new chip announcement hasn’t been enough to close it.
What Jalapeño actually is
Jalapeño is a custom ASIC, or application-specific integrated circuit, built specifically for AI inference workloads. In English: it’s a chip designed to do one thing really well, which is running the computations that happen every time someone asks ChatGPT a question.
OpenAI’s engineers led the design process while Broadcom handled the production side. The whole design-to-tape-out cycle took nine months, which is genuinely fast for custom silicon.
