OpenAI and Synopsys team up to build an AI model that designs chips like a seasoned engineer

OpenAI and Synopsys have signed a multi-year strategic partnership to jointly develop GPT-Synopsys, a specialized AI model built for chip design. The two companies announced the agreement on September 30, 2026.

Synopsys supplies the electronic design automation (EDA) software that engineers use to design computer chips and semiconductors. GPT-Synopsys combines OpenAI's frontier AI technology with those tools, and OpenAI will license Synopsys' EDA tools for the project.

What the model is meant to do

According to the announcement, the goal is a model that can reason about chip design and verification and directly operate Synopsys' tools. Engineers will delegate design objectives and then review and approve the output. Agentic AI already connects general-purpose models to EDA tools; the partnership aims to turn a frontier model into an expert user of those tools, interpreting their outputs and iterating on designs.

The model will run on OpenAI's infrastructure. Customer data will not be used for training and will be stored encrypted, both companies said. Early tests with semiconductor customers are already under way.

Commercial terms

Synopsys and OpenAI will collaborate on research and development and on joint go-to-market efforts under a shared revenue framework. Sassine Ghazi, president and CEO of Synopsys, said semiconductor engineering requires a dramatic acceleration of chip design without compromising power, performance and area (PPA) metrics or first-time-right silicon. Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, said better chips help the company build better AI.

Why it matters

OpenAI is already working with Broadcom on chips designed specifically for running AI models, and the recently unveiled Jalapeno chip has been described as competitive with comparable specialized silicon. The Synopsys partnership extends that effort into the software layer of chip design itself.