OpenAI to Spend More Than $20 Billion on Cerebras Chips, Receive Equity Stake

OpenAI recently struck an unusual deal to lessen its dependence on Nvidia’s AI chips and potentially lower its computing expenses in the coming years.

OpenAI has agreed to pay chip designer Cerebras more than $20 billion to use servers powered by the firm’s AI server chips over the next three years, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deal. OpenAI will receive warrants for a minority portion of Cerebras’ shares, and that ownership could increase as it spends more, according to two of the people. OpenAI has also agreed to provide Cerebras with around $1 billion to fund the development of data centers that would run its AI products, according to three people with direct knowledge of the deal terms, which weren’t previously disclosed.