OpenAI unveils first custom AI inference chip, Jalapeño, with Broadcom

OpenAI and Broadcom unveiled their first custom AI accelerator chip named “Jalapeño,” positioning it as a purpose-built processor for large language model (LLM) inference, rather than the more general GPUs offered by Nvidia or AMD.

Jalapeño’s engineering timeline set a blistering pace for the semiconductor industry, moving from early schematics to fabrication readiness within a brief nine-month window, when new processor development cycles are typically measured in years. The OpenAI and Broadcom partnership itself was only publicly announced in October 2025.

The companies attributed this speed to deep software-hardware co-development that actively used OpenAI’s own models to accelerate parts of the chip design. Sources close to the firms told VentureBeat the development process relied on prior generation OpenAI models.

After receiving an early physical model on Wednesday, OpenAI outlined plans to begin rolling out these processors across active data centers by the end of this year. OpenAI says it has already begun testing running GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark on the chips at a production workload in a test environment.

The ultimate goal involves deploying gigawatt-scale data centers with Microsoft and other partners beginning in 2026 — data centers with compute requiring energy on the order of cities.