Even after Stargate, Oracle, Nvidia and AMD, OpenAI has more big deals coming soon, says Sam Altman

At almost the same moment, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was expressing his astonishment Multi-billion dollar OpenAI deal With competitor AMD – shortly after his company agreed to do so Investing up to $100 billion In AI Model Maker – Sam Altman was saying that there are more such deals in the pipeline.

Huang appeared Squawk Box on CNBC Wednesday. When asked if he knew about the AMD deal before it was announced, he replied: “Not really.”

As TechCrunch previously reported, OpenAI’s deal with AMD unusual. AMD has agreed to give OpenAI large tranches of AMD stock — up to 10% of the company over a period of years contingent on factors such as increases in the stock price. In return, it will use OpenAI and help develop the chipmaker’s next generation of AI GPU chips. This makes OpenAI a shareholder in AMD.

Nvidia’s deal is the opposite. Nvidia has invested in the AI ​​modeling startup, making it a shareholder in OpenAI.

While OpenAI has been using Nvidia hardware for years through cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, Oracle OCI and CoreWeave, “this is the first time we will be selling to them directly,” Huang explained. He added that his company will continue to provide equipment to fastener makers as well.

These direct sales, which include AI equipment beyond GPUs such as systems and networking, are intended to “prepare” OpenAI for the day when it becomes a “self-hosted hyperscaler,” Huang said. In other words, when it uses its own data centers.

But Huang admits that OpenAI “doesn’t have the money yet” to pay for all this equipment. He estimated that each gigawatt of AI data center would cost OpenAI between $50 billion and $60 billion, covering everything from land and power to servers and equipment.

So far, in 2025, OpenAI has powered 10 gigawatts of US facilities through its $500 billion Stargate deal with partners Oracle and SoftBank. (In addition, it has a $300 billion cloud deal with Oracle.)

Its partnership with Nvidia was intended to provide at least 10 gigawatts of AI data centers. Its partnership with AMD was 6 GW. In addition, its Stargate UK partnership includes expanding data centers in the UK, and it has other European commitments. By some estimates, OpenAI has done so this year A trillion dollars worth of these deals have been signed.

Similar to the AMD deal, the Nvidia deal has been criticized for being “circular.” Bloomberg reported. Critics say Nvidia is essentially locking in its OpenAI purchases, receiving shares of the AI ​​startup in exchange for its efforts.

Altman to the World: Expect More

While Huang was analyzing OpenAI’s infrastructure needs on CNBC, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman interviewed Andreessen Horowitz a16z podcast decreased.

During the podcast, Ben Horowitz, co-founder of a16z, told Altman that he was “very impressed with the improvement of the deal structure,” referring to the latest deals. Andreessen Horowitz is an OpenAI investor, so it would be shocking if he wasn’t impressed. OpenAI has found a way to acquire billions of dollars’ worth of hardware for someone else’s dime. repeatedly.

When asked about these recent deals, Altman said: “You should expect a lot from us in the coming months.”

Altman sees future OpenAI models and other upcoming products being much more capable, thus fueling more demand, “and we decided it was time to start making a very aggressive bet on infrastructure,” he explained.

The problem is that OpenAI’s revenues today are currently nowhere near $1 trillion, even though they are growing rapidly by any measure. It is said to reach $4.5 billion In the first half of 2025.

Yet Altman clearly believes all this investment will pay for itself eventually. “I have never been more confident in the research roadmap ahead of us as well as the economic value that will come from using these (future) models.”

But he said OpenAI couldn’t reach all this economic wealth on its own.

“To bet on this scale, we kind of need the entire industry, or a large portion of the industry, to support it. And that’s from the electrons level to the distribution of models and all the things in between, and it’s a lot. So, we’ll be partnering with a lot of people,” Altman said, with more deals expected in the coming months.

So get ready, tech industry. OpenAI is still moving and dealing.