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.
AI SPLURGE: The four major US tech companies have lost more than US$950 billion in value since releasing earnings and outlooks, while equipment makers were gaining Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that would reach about US$650 billion this year — a flood of cash earmarked for new data centers and all the gear within them. The spending planned by Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp, all in pursuit of dominance in the still-nascent market for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is a boom without a parallel this century. Each of the companies’ estimates for this year is expected either near or surpass their budgets for the past three years combined. They would set a high-watermark for capital spending
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Bank of America Corp nearly doubled its forecast for the nation’s economic growth this year, adding to a slew of upgrades even after a rip-roaring last year propelled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI). The firm lifted its projection to 8 percent from 4.5 percent on “relentless global demand” for the hardware that Taiwanese companies make, according to a note dated yesterday by analysts including Xiaoqing Pi (皮曉青). Taiwan’s GDP expanded 8.63 percent last year, the fastest pace since 2010. The increase “reflects our sustained optimism over Taiwan’s technology driven expansion and is reinforced by several recent developments,” including a more stable currency,
COLLABORATION: Taiwan and the US could jointly find solutions to weaknesses in supply chain resilience for critical materials, focusing on mining and initial refinement Taiwan is likely to purchase rare earths from the US in the future, and is also in talks with Australia and Canada to strengthen global rare earth supply chain security, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. Taiwan and the US last month concluded the sixth Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, during which both sides signed a joint statement endorsing the principles of the Pax Silica Declaration, pledging to deepen cooperation in areas including critical minerals. At the time, Kung said the two sides would establish working groups to advance cooperation in areas including artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, critical materials and
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