OpenAI and Broadcom AI chip cooperation have reached a financing impasse. According to reports, when OpenAI and chip design manufacturer Broadcom officially announced their joint research and development of customized artificial intelligence chips last year, both parties regarded the cooperation as a confirmed deal. A few months later, according to an internal memo and two people familiar with the negotiations, the two parties were negotiating to have Broadcom fund the first phase of chip production.

This stage requires 1.3 GW of data center computing capacity and a cost of approximately US$18 billion. Based on this cost calculation, the complete project code-named "Nexus" with a total scale of 10 GW will cost US$180 billion in the chip production process alone, not including data center construction and other supporting expenses.

Securing this financing is crucial for OpenAI. The ChatGPT developer predicts that its operating capital consumption will exceed US$200 billion by 2029. Self-developed chips are a core part of OpenAI's strategy to reduce server costs and increase gross profit margins. But the negotiations have now reached a potential deadlock. An OpenAI executive revealed to colleagues in an internal memo last month that Broadcom made it clear that it would only provide financing for the first phase of the project if Microsoft agreed to purchase about 40% of its chip production capacity. Microsoft will deploy these chips to its own data centers and then lease computing power to OpenAI.

Informed sources involved in the negotiations said that Microsoft has decades of experience in data center operations and is also a company with top credit qualifications in the world. Once it makes a purchase commitment, Broadcom will be convinced that its investment can be repaid. The memo also pointed out that Microsoft may also refuse to purchase this batch of customized chips, which will directly rewrite the financing terms of the project. According to the memo and two people familiar with the negotiations, the proposed chip cooperation agreement has added a clause: If Microsoft’s actual purchase volume does not meet the target, OpenAI must find other purchasers on its own.

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