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The results of a new multibillion-dollar partnership between chipmaker AMD and AI giant OpenAI are projected to demand more energy resources than that of some European countries, according to researchers.
As reported by 9News, OpenAI announced this week a strategic partnership between it and AMD through which it would deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs, with the first gigawatt beginning in the second half of 2026, with the deployment of AMD Instinct™ MI450 Series GPUs.
“We are thrilled to partner with OpenAI to deliver AI compute at massive scale,” said Dr Lisa Su, chair and CEO at AMD.
“This partnership brings the best of AMD and OpenAI together to create a true win-win, enabling the world’s most ambitious AI buildout and advancing the entire AI ecosystem.”
The deal caused a $96 billion increase in AMD’s market value.
While the specific use of the GPUs’ computing power is currently unknown, the announcement comes just days after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed new plans for AI data centres around the globe, which together would consume the equivalent of 10 gigawatts of power, a number that Cornell University Professor Fengqi You said is more than some countries.
“Ten gigawatts is more than the peak power demand in Switzerland or Portugal. Seventeen gigawatts is like powering both countries together,” he said.
This 10 gigawatts is on top of 17 gigawatts already being used by data centres.
University of Chicago Computer Science Professor Andrew Chien told Fortune that the energy demand will soon equal that used by “the whole economy”.
“I’ve been a computer scientist for 40 years, and for most of that time, computing was the tiniest piece of our economy’s power use,” Chien said.
“A year and a half ago, they were talking about five gigawatts.
“Now they’ve upped the ante to ten, 15, even 17.
“There’s an ongoing escalation.”
Projections by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in December last year also found that by 2028, over half of all electricity used by data centres will be for AI, adding that this would mean that AI is using the equivalent of 22 per cent of all US households.
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