Plans for a highly anticipated Samsung OpenAI AI chip have reportedly hit a major roadblock. According to Korean news outlet Greened, the collaborative project to design a custom Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for OpenAI has ground to a halt. While early-stage research and development—based on the ARM architecture—had reportedly made solid progress, sources indicate that strategic disagreements between the two tech giants have caused the entire joint venture to stall.
This sudden AI chip partnership stall explains a lot of recent moves in the industry. Most notably, Samsung recently turned its attention toward OpenAI’s chief rival, Anthropic (the creator of Claude), securing a significant investment in the startup. Industry insiders suggest that instead of building chips for OpenAI, Samsung’s foundry division might pivot to manufacturing custom AI processors for Anthropic under a potential Anthropic foundry deal, leveraging its advanced chip fabrication nodes.
Even though the custom silicon project is on ice, Samsung and OpenAI are not cutting ties completely. The two companies signed multiple comprehensive cooperation agreements in late 2025, and several of Samsung’s subsidiaries continue to work closely with OpenAI. For instance, Samsung SDS is actively collaborating with OpenAI to build state-of-the-art AI data centers, and Samsung’s semiconductor wing remains a key supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and storage chips vital for running OpenAI’s heavy models.
This shifting dynamic highlights the high stakes and complex alliances shaping the future of AI hardware. As tech firms race to secure custom chips to lower operational costs, partnerships are forming and dissolving rapidly. Whether Samsung and OpenAI will ever resolve their differences and restart their chip project remains to be seen, but for now, Samsung appears to be hedging its bets by aligning closer with Anthropic as it seeks a larger share of the lucrative AI foundry market.
