{"text":[[{"start":11.28,"text":"OpenAI has agreed to purchase 10 gigawatts of computer chips from US semiconductor giant Broadcom, the latest in a string of deals by the artificial intelligence start-up worth hundreds of billions of dollars."}],[{"start":28.019999999999996,"text":"The mammoth chip order means OpenAI could spend another $350bn to $500bn on top of the roughly $1tn of chip and data centre deals it has signed in recent months as it races to secure the computing power to run services such as ChatGPT."}],[{"start":51.919999999999995,"text":"In September, OpenAI agreed to buy chips with a total power consumption of 10GW from Nvidia, and last week announced it would buy a further 6GW of chips from rival chip designer AMD. OpenAI also recently struck a data centre deal with Oracle that will cost $300bn over five years."}],[{"start":78.07,"text":"The deals have bound some of the world’s biggest tech groups to OpenAI’s fortunes, despite questions about how OpenAI will fund them as the cost dwarfs the start-up’s existing revenues."}],[{"start":91.64999999999999,"text":"They also commit OpenAI to an ambitious infrastructure development project as deploying the chips will require building vast new data centres."}],[{"start":102.77999999999999,"text":"Under the latest deal, OpenAI has co-designed custom chips with Broadcom specifically for running its own AI models, marking the first time the start-up has produced its own AI chips. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal."}],[{"start":120.51999999999998,"text":"When completed, the deals would bring OpenAI’s total access to computing capacity to over 26GW — equivalent to about 26 nuclear reactors."}],[{"start":134.15999999999997,"text":"Broadcom shares were up almost 8 per cent shortly after Wall Street’s opening bell on Monday."}],[{"start":140.63999999999996,"text":"In a podcast announcing the deal, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said his company had been working with Broadcom for 18 months to develop the custom chips, which would give it a “gigantic amount of computing infrastructure”. He described the race to develop AI infrastructure as “the biggest joint industrial project in human history”."}],[{"start":165.52999999999997,"text":"The chips have been designed specifically for inference, the process whereby an AI responds to users’ requests, Altman said. Inference is expected to become a far greater portion of the technology’s needs as demand for AI computing progresses beyond training or creating models."}],[{"start":187.67999999999998,"text":"The Financial Times first revealed in September that OpenAI was working with Broadcom to mass-produce its own chips next year."}],[{"start":197.48,"text":"Hock Tan, chief executive of Broadcom, said: “This is like the railroad or the internet. [AI] is becoming a critical utility over time for 8bn people globally.” He added: “But it cannot be done with just one party, it needs a lot of partnerships and collaboration across an ecosystem.”"}],[{"start":220.62,"text":"Unlike its deals with Nvidia and AMD, OpenAI has not secured any financial incentive from Broadcom for buying vast quantities of its chips. Nvidia agreed to invest $100bn in OpenAI, while AMD gave the start-up warrants entitling it to buy up to 10 per cent of the chip group for just a cent a share."}],[{"start":245.31,"text":"OpenAI’s deal with Broadcom may cost less than $500bn as prices for chips come down over time due to greater competition in the market, which has so far been dominated by Nvidia."}],[{"start":260.15,"text":"Each gigawatt of AI computing capacity costs about $50bn to deploy at today’s prices, according to OpenAI executives. This includes roughly $35bn on chips and a further $15bn on the infrastructure to run them. Broadcom’s chips are expected to cost less than Nvidia’s."}],[{"start":286.42999999999995,"text":"The Broadcom and AMD deals are intended to reduce OpenAI’s reliance on Nvidia, help it control costs and bring chip prices down over time, according to people close to the deals."}],[{"start":301.10999999999996,"text":"Altman has said for months that a shortage of processors had slowed down his company’s progress in releasing new versions of ChatGPT."}],[{"start":322.62999999999994,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1760407585_6057.mp3"}