OpenAI Just Spent $10 Billion On Something That Could Wreck NVIDIA Forever | by Jano le Roux | The Startup | Sep, 2025

Sam Altman is quietly building the Apple of AI chips.

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Every time OpenAI speaks, the tech world holds its breath. It’s not about new features, performance bumps, or flashy demos anymore.

It’s about something far more foundational: the very hardware that powers the industry. The fear is palpable, and this week, that fear became a reality.

OpenAI just made a $10 billion move that could make every other chip on the market obsolete.

The $6 billion problem that forced OpenAI’s hand

The problem was six billion dollars. A number they could not outrun. That is what OpenAI spent each year on compute. It was more than some nations spent on their armies.

And there was no end in sight. NVIDIA’s new chips, the Blackwells, were gone. A full year of them, all sold. The company that made ChatGPT could not buy the tools to run its business. There was no way forward.

So they made a choice. The only choice. They would build their own.

The Broadcom partnership that changes everything