OpenAI seeks to take 10% stake in chipmaker AMD with new deal

By Mucahithan Avcioglu

ISTANBUL (AA) - ChatGPT creator OpenAI announced Monday an agreement with the chipmaker AMD that could result in OpenAI acquiring approximately a 10% stake in the chipmaker.

The firms said that OpenAI will deploy six gigawatts of AMD's Instinct graphics processing units (GPUs) spanning several years and hardware generations. In the second half of 2026, it will begin with a one-gigawatt chip deployment.

AMD has granted OpenAI a warrant for up to 160 million shares of AMD common stock as part of the agreement; vesting milestones are based on AMD's share price and deployment volume.

Additional tranches will unlock once OpenAI grows to 6 gigawatts and reaches significant technical and business milestones necessary for a large-scale rollout. The first tranche vests with the first complete gigawatt deployment.

Given the current number of outstanding shares, OpenAI may possess approximately 10% of AMD if it exercises the whole warrant.

OpenAI said the agreement was worth billions of dollars, although the firm would not provide a precise figure.

“This partnership is a major step in building the compute capacity needed to realize AI’s full potential,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. “AMD’s leadership in high-performance chips will enable us to accelerate progress and bring the benefits of advanced AI to everyone faster.”

AMD CEO Lisa Su said: “We are thrilled to partner with OpenAI to deliver AI compute at massive scale. This partnership brings the best of AMD and OpenAI together to create a true win-win, enabling the world’s most ambitious AI buildout and advancing the entire AI ecosystem.”

After the announcement, AMD's shares surged more than 35% Monday in the pre-market trading.

The deal followed OpenAI's $100 billion equity and supply deal with Nvidia in September.

Long-term hardware supply and capital investment were coupled in that arrangement; however, in Nvidia's case, the chipmaker acquired a share in OpenAI.