Sam Altman takes on Nvidia with OpenAI’s Jalapeño chip

Sam Altman has unveiled OpenAI’s first custom-built AI chip, Jalapeño, as the company moves to reduce its reliance on third-party hardware and strengthen control over the infrastructure powering its artificial intelligence products.

According to OpenAI, the company has developed its first in-house artificial intelligence processor, Jalapeño, in partnership with Broadcom, bringing the ChatGPT creator directly into the increasingly competitive AI chip market.

Designed for inference workloads rather than general-purpose computing, the chip is built to handle tasks performed by large language models such as ChatGPT, Codex, and future AI agents.

OpenAI said the processor was completed in just nine months, a timeline that has drawn attention as major technology companies race to secure computing resources for AI services.

In its announcement, OpenAI described custom silicon as a key part of its full-stack approach. The company stated that controlling hardware alongside models and software infrastructure could help it serve more users while lowering operating costs.

The launch also places OpenAI in more direct competition with Nvidia, whose graphics processors currently dominate AI training and inference across the industry. While OpenAI did not position Jalapeño as a replacement for every external accelerator, the company indicated that developing proprietary chips would give it more flexibility as demand for AI computing continues to rise.

Commenting on the launch, Greg Brockman, President and Co-Founder of OpenAI, said the company built Jalapeño to improve the efficiency of delivering AI services at scale.

“By designing more of the stack ourselves, we can serve more intelligence with greater efficiency and keep pushing advanced AI toward broader access.”

His remarks accompanied OpenAI’s unveiling of the chip and underscored the company’s effort to gain more control over the computing infrastructure behind its AI products as demand for ChatGPT and other models continues to grow.

OpenAI expands its enterprise reach

OpenAI recently announced a multi-year agreement with BBVA that will expand ChatGPT Enterprise access from 11,000 employees to the bank’s entire workforce of 120,000 staff members across 25 countries. According to OpenAI, the deployment will support customer service, risk analysis, software development, and internal operations while giving BBVA direct access to OpenAI’s product, research, and technology teams.

The company described the BBVA rollout as one of the largest generative AI deployments in the financial services sector. Coming a day after Visa revealed a strategic partnership with OpenAI for its agentic commerce initiative, the agreement adds to OpenAI’s growing footprint in banking and payments.

According to Visa, the partnership will enable secure Visa payment capabilities inside AI-powered shopping experiences, extending OpenAI’s role into commercial transactions as AI assistants become more integrated with consumer services.

IPO speculation gains momentum

The hardware announcement arrives as discussion around a potential OpenAI public listing continues to build.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman recently indicated that the company could pursue an initial public offering within the next year. Interest in a possible listing has intensified following Coinbase’s introduction of pre-IPO futures tied to OpenAI, giving traders a way to speculate on the company’s valuation before any formal market debut.

Recent corporate developments have added to that attention. During the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, OpenAI promoted advertising opportunities tied to ChatGPT and demonstrated its Codex coding platform to marketers seeking automation and data-driven tools.

Separate reports have also highlighted the company’s expanding influence across the technology sector. Last week, Amazon withdrew from distributing “Artificial,” a film centered on Altman and featuring Elon Musk, while continuing discussions with filmmakers about finding another distributor.

The decision came as Amazon deepened its commercial relationship with OpenAI through a multi-billion-dollar investment commitment linked to future milestones.

Taken together, the rollout of Jalapeño, major enterprise agreements, new financial partnerships, and mounting IPO speculation show how OpenAI is extending its reach well beyond chatbot development and into the infrastructure, finance, and commercial systems supporting the next phase of AI adoption.