OpenAI is releasing its first artificial intelligence (AI) model that runs on chips from semiconductor startup Cerebras Systems Inc, part of a push by the ChatGPT maker to broaden the pool of chipmakers it works with beyond Nvidia Corp. The model, GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark, is intended to be a less powerful but quicker version of its most recent Codex software for automating coding. The Spark model, slated to be released on Thursday, lets software engineers quickly complete tasks such as editing specific chunks of code and running tests. Users can easily interrupt it or order the model to complete something else coding-related without having to wait for it to finish a lengthy computing process.
Last month, OpenAI signed a deal worth more than US$10 billion for hardware from Cerebras to get quicker responses from its AI models. For Cerebras, the partnership offers a significant boost in its bid to compete in a market long dominated by Nvidia.
For OpenAI, the deal was the latest move to work with more suppliers to meet its growing computing needs. OpenAI struck a blockbuster agreement in October last year with Nvidia rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc to buy 6 gigawatts’ worth of AMD graphics processing units over multiple years.
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Later that month, OpenAI agreed to buy custom chips and networking components from Broadcom Inc. More recently, OpenAI’s relationship with Nvidia has come under scrutiny amid reports of tensions between the two firms. The chief executives of both companies have since publicly said they remain committed to working together.
In a statement on Thursday last week, an OpenAI spokesperson said the company’s partnership with Nvidia is “foundational” and that OpenAI’s most powerful AI models are the result of “multi-year hardware and software engineering done side by side” between the two companies. “That’s why we are anchoring on Nvidia as the core of our training and inference stack, while deliberately expanding the ecosystem around it through partnerships with Cerebras, AMD and Broadcom,” the spokesperson said.
The new model marks
OpenAI’s latest attempt to best AI rivals such as Alphabet Inc’s Google and Anthropic PBC, which are competing for dominance in the rapidly growing market for AI coding assistants. Codex has more than 1 million weekly active users, OpenAI said.
Initially, the updated AI model would be available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers as a research preview, the company said, with plans to roll it out to more users in the coming weeks.
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