OpenAI bought a continent’s worth of compute, and a slice of AMD

6 gigawatts. That’s how much power OpenAI just signed for in chips from AMD - roughly Denmark-level energy, again - starting with next year’s MI450s. In return, OpenAI gets up to 160 million AMD shares at one cent apiece - a potential 10% stake if it hits certain milestones.

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The deal’s worth tens of billions and could turn AMD into the first real rival to Nvidia’s silicon throne. Lisa Su calls it a “win-win.” Sam Altman calls it survival. “It’s hard to overstate how difficult it’s become to get enough compute,” he said - while inking parallel mega-deals with Oracle ($300B) and Nvidia ($100B).

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This isn’t partnership; it’s arms-race capitalism. Every AI model’s hungry, every CEO’s hoarding power like it’s oil, and the new empires aren’t built on land - they’re built on data centers.

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Welcome to the Gigawatt Era, where GPUs are the new gold.