Samsung will make custom AI chips for OpenAI

TL;DR

OpenAI is expanding its partnership with Samsung to include joint chip research, chip production, and wider use of OpenAI software inside Samsung.

Samsung will manufacture a custom AI chip for OpenAI, likely for AI inference, and the companies will also work on advanced memory chips for growing AI workloads.

Samsung is one of OpenAI's largest ChatGPT deployments, and South Korea has become a major market for ChatGPT and ChatGPT Enterprise.

OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT, is expanding its partnership with Samsung Electronics. The company announced joint research and chip production efforts with the South Korean tech giant, alongside deployment of OpenAI's enterprise software across Samsung.

OpenAI Korea announced the expanded collaboration, confirming that Samsung will manufacture a custom AI chip for OpenAI. While OpenAI has not revealed the chip’s official name or specific use case, it is likely an AI computing chip designed to succeed Jalapeno, OpenAI's first custom inference chip developed with Broadcom and fabricated by TSMC.

Beyond custom AI processors, the two companies will collaborate on advanced memory chips. OpenAI emphasized the growing demand for cutting-edge memory chips to power faster, more complex AI workloads. This effort is a part of OpenAI's Stargate data center initiative, which also involves Samsung’s rival, SK Hynix.

OpenAI also noted that Samsung represents one of the largest worldwide deployments of ChatGPT. Samsung employees across Korea and overseas use the AI tool for research and development, sales, and marketing.

Samsung DX (Device eXperience), the division that makes and sells smartphones, TVs, home appliances, laptops, and wearables, allows staff to use ChatGPT internally alongside Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude.

South Korea currently hosts the largest paying ChatGPT user base outside the United States. Furthermore, the number of ChatGPT Enterprise users across South Korean institutions surged roughly 28x year over year as its use has expanded across legal, finance, marketing, and operations.

Asif Iqbal Shaik - Senior Editor

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First Samsung device: T100

Asif is a computer engineer turned technology journalist. He has been using Samsung phones since 2004, and his current smartphone is the Galaxy S23 Ultra. He loves headphones, mechanical keyboards, and PC hardware. When not writing about technology, he likes watching crime and science fiction movies and TV shows.

Business AI Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT HBM OpenAI Samsung Device Solutions Samsung Foundry Samsung Memory