OpenAI plans to buy Google's Tensor Processing Unit AI chips, The Information reported, citing a person familiar with the matter, deepening ties between the two AI rivals; no financial terms were disclosed and neither company confirmed a deal.
OpenAI plans to buy Google's AI chips, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter, as technology companies ramp up spending to meet surging demand for AI computing. The reported plan would deepen ties between OpenAI and Alphabet's Google, which compete in AI products and search but have increasingly struck commercial deals, including OpenAI making its frontier models available through Google Cloud last week.
The report disclosed no financial terms or other details. Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular business hours, while OpenAI declined to comment, so the plan remains a reported intention rather than a confirmed purchase.
OpenAI is already among the largest buyers of Nvidia's graphics processing units, which it uses to train AI models and run inference computing, and Reuters reported in June 2025 that the ChatGPT maker had begun renting Google's AI chips. Google's Tensor Processing Units have gained traction as an alternative to Nvidia's market-leading chips as companies seek cheaper options, and Google began selling TPUs directly to some customers this year, with deals including rival Anthropic fuelling demand.
The central claim rests on a single reported source: The Information's person familiar with the matter, as carried by Reuters. That is thinner than a company announcement, and the absence of comment from both companies means the size, price and timing of any purchase could not be verified. What is established from earlier reporting is the direction of travel: rented TPU capacity since 2025, a Google Cloud distribution deal last week, and Alphabet's own statement, previously reported, that it expects to begin recognising a small percentage of revenue from TPU sales agreements by the end of this year, with the vast majority expected in 2027.
The stakes are about who supplies the AI buildout. Amazon, Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet plan to spend as much as 600 billion dollars combined this year on AI infrastructure, Reuters reported, as investors increasingly question when such spending will translate into returns. A second chip supplier at OpenAI's scale would loosen Nvidia's hold on incremental AI compute spending, even if Nvidia remains a major supplier.
The next test is Alphabet's quarterly results later on Wednesday, where investors will look for signs that heavy AI investment is driving growth in its cloud business, and any comment from OpenAI or Google that confirms, denies or sizes the reported chip purchase.