OpenAI to Buy Google TPUs in First Step Beyond Nvidia

OpenAI intends to buy artificial intelligence processors from Google, according to TechRadar, citing a report from The Information. The arrangement would cover Google's tensor processing units, or TPUs, and represents the ChatGPT maker's first move to obtain chips from a supplier other than Nvidia.

The report did not disclose what OpenAI would pay, how many chips it would take, or when they would arrive. Google's parent company, Alphabet, has been selling its processors to outside buyers on a commercial basis, giving selected customers access to hardware that had largely served Google's internal systems.

OpenAI is already one of Nvidia's larger customers, buying graphics processors to build and operate the models behind ChatGPT and its other services. The reported Google deal signals that the company wants capacity from a second source rather than relying on a single vendor. In 2025, OpenAI began paying Google for access to its chips, so the two firms had a working relationship before these purchase plans emerged.

The possible purchase comes shortly after OpenAI said its advanced models would be offered through Google Cloud, adding a further commercial link between the two rivals. Google and OpenAI compete in AI research and in other areas of technology, yet they have increasingly struck arrangements covering computing resources and access to each other's products.

OpenAI is also building its own hardware. In June 2026 the company said it had worked with Broadcom on a chip of its own design, and it aims to put that processor into use before the end of 2026 as part of a longer, multi-generation hardware effort. Together with Nvidia purchases and the reported Google order, that programme shows OpenAI lining up several routes to computing capacity.

Alphabet could gain from the demand. Its finance chief, Anat Ashkenazi, has said the company expects to book a small share of revenue from TPU sales agreements by the close of 2026, with most of the money from those deals recognised in 2027.

Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft are together expected to spend up to $600 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026, according to the report. Investors have been pressing for clarity on when such spending will produce adequate returns.