- OpenAI provides Google TPUs to cut back dependence on Nvidia GPUs
- TPU adoption highlights OpenAI’s push to diversify compute choices
- Google Cloud wins OpenAI as buyer regardless of aggressive dynamics
OpenAI has reportedly begun utilizing Google’s tensor processing models (TPUs) to energy ChatGPT and different merchandise.
A report from Reuters, which cites a supply accustomed to the transfer, notes that is OpenAI’s first main shift away from Nvidia {hardware}, which has to this point fashioned the spine of OpenAI’s compute stack.
Google is leasing TPUs by its cloud platform, including OpenAI to a rising checklist of exterior prospects which incorporates Apple, Anthropic, and Secure Superintelligence.
Not abandoning Nvidia
Whereas the chips being rented will not be Google’s most superior TPU fashions, the settlement displays OpenAI’s efforts to decrease inference prices and diversify past each Nvidia and Microsoft Azure.
The choice comes as inference workloads develop alongside ChatGPT utilization, now serving over 100 million lively customers day by day.
That demand represents a considerable share of OpenAI’s estimated $40 billion annual compute price range.
Google’s v6e “Trillium” TPUs are constructed for steady-state inference and supply excessive throughput with decrease operational prices in comparison with top-end GPUs.
Though Google declined to remark and OpenAI didn’t instantly reply to Reuters, the association suggests a deepening of infrastructure choices.
OpenAI continues to depend on Microsoft-backed Azure for many of its deployment (Microsoft is the corporate’s greatest investor by a way), however provide points and pricing pressures round GPUs have uncovered the dangers of relying on a single vendor.
Bringing Google into the combo not solely improves OpenAI’s skill to scale compute, it additionally aligns with a broader trade pattern towards mixing {hardware} sources for flexibility and pricing leverage.
There’s no suggestion that OpenAI is contemplating abandoning Nvidia altogether, however incorporating Google’s TPUs provides extra management over price and availability.
The extent to which OpenAI can combine this {hardware} into its stack stays to be seen, particularly given the software program ecosystem’s long-standing reliance on CUDA and Nvidia tooling.
