OpenAI plans to launch its custom AI processor by 2026: goodbye to Nvidia?

OpenAI plans to finalize its first design of a custom artificial intelligence processor in the coming months, sending it to TSMC for production, with the goal of achieving large-scale manufacturing by 2026.

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This movement aims to ensure the company’s competitiveness against giants like Google, Meta, and Microsoft, which have already made progress in the development of their own custom silicon.

The design of OpenAI’s processor will include a systolic array, a structure that allows for efficient matrix or vector calculations by connecting processing elements in a pipeline configuration.

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This processor is expected to use HBM memory and be manufactured using TSMC’s capacity in the N3 process, which belongs to the 3 nm classification.

OpenAI is collaborating with Broadcom, where the artificial intelligence company will develop the key intellectual property while Broadcom will handle the assembly of the final design.

Richard Ho leads this project, who has experience in developing TPUs for Google. Although the OpenAI team has grown to 40 engineers, it is still considerably smaller compared to the teams at Amazon or Google, suggesting that its internal contribution to the design may be limited.

The development of high-performance processors is a very costly project, with estimates suggesting that each model could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, not including the necessary infrastructure that could double that figure.

However, the growing demand for AI chips has led companies like Meta and Microsoft to allocate multi-billion dollar investments in infrastructure, which could encourage OpenAI to follow a similar path.

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If OpenAI manages to achieve mass production of its processor by mid-2026, it could begin its deployment in the second half of that year.