Whenever Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of AI at the chip giant AMD, gives CEO Lisa Su an update on the progress of the company’s software efforts, she always has the same response: “Great job. You need to go faster.”

It may seem unusual for a semiconductor company to put such an emphasis on software, but that’s what unlocks the power of the coveted chips that undergird the AI industry. They coax better performance from the silicon and optimize functionality. They allow engineers to operate and program the hardware. More importantly, they’re sticky: when engineers at a company learn how to use a chipmaker’s software platform, they can be hard pressed to learn another.

According to Boppana, software is part of what helped AMD to score one of the biggest victories in its more than 50 year history: a multibillion dollar deal that will see ChatGPT maker OpenAI use AMD’s MI450 chips to power 6 gigawatts of compute for its popular AI products. As part of the agreement, OpenAI will be able to buy up to 160 million shares, or 10%, of AMD. The partnership is a massive boon for AMD as it tries to catch up to market leader Nvidia.

The foundation of the deal dates back to 2023 when OpenAI first began running some of its models on AMD hardware. In the ensuing years, AMD would seek the AI giant’s

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