It looks like OpenAI could be moving onto hardware

OpenAI is a company that most of us know for being the developers behind ChatGPT. However, it seems that the company could be expanding beyond software. According to a report from Money.udn, it seems that OpenAI could be getting into the hardware business by creating its own custom chipset.

The report claims that OpenAI has been in talks with none other than TSMC. TSMC, for those unfamiliar, is the chip manufacturer responsible for creating chipsets for companies like Apple, Qualcomm, and more. OpenAI apparently wants TSMC to produce a custom AI chipset based on the A16 Angstrom process.

Custom AI chipsets aren’t really new. In fact, over the years companies like Apple have included what they’re calling Neural Engines as part of its chipsets. These are designed specifically for machine learning algorithms. Presumably this is something that OpenAI wants to do, especially to help power its future AI systems like Sora, a generative AI platform.

What’s interesting about the choice to go with the A16 Angstrom process is that this is a process that Apple apparently will use as well for its future iPhones. Apparently this is due to how both Apple and OpenAI plan to collaborate on future AI services. Apple and OpenAI already have a partnership that is part of iOS 18 and Apple Intelligence, but it will be interesting to see what kind of collaborations could be in the future for both companies.