Nvidia is partnering up with OpenAI to offer compute and cash

OpenAI is teaming up with Nvidia via a “strategic partnership” that will get the ChatGPT-maker more compute and more cash to develop new models on the road to superintelligence.

The partnership, announced Monday, will allow OpenAI to “build and deploy at least 10 gigawatts of AI datacenters with NVIDIA systems,” which translates to millions of GPUs that can help power OpenAI’s new models. One of the most important points here, besides more data centers and compute — which are always in high demand for companies like OpenAI — is that as part of the deal, NVIDIA “intends to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI progressively as each gigawatt is deployed,” per the release. The details will be finalized in the next few weeks, according to the companies.

Nvidia will now be a “preferred strategic compute and networking partner for [OpenAI’s] AI factory growth plans,” OpenAI said.

“Everything starts with compute,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement. “Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future, and we will utilize what we’re building with NVIDIA to both create new AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses with them at scale.” Last week, OpenAI said ChatGPT had reached 700 million weekly active users.

News of the strategic partnership comes after the January announcement that Microsoft would no longer be the sole compute provider for OpenAI, and that the tech giant would now just have a “right of first refusal” in such cases. Since then, OpenAI has branched out, beginning to build its own data centers and a $300 billion cloud computing deal with Oracle. OpenAI and Microsoft also put out a pointed statement earlier this month that they had signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding,” adding that they are “actively working to finalize contractual terms in a definitive agreement.”

Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI, but the companies have had to evolve their partnership as OpenAI grows. The companies have reportedly clashed over the “AGI clause” in their agreement, which would shut Microsoft out of earnings after OpenAI achieves AGI, or the idea of AI that equals or surpasses human intelligence.

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