OpenAI, Synopsys team up to build GPT model for AI-powered chip design

OpenAI and semiconductor engineering company Synopsys on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership to develop GPT-Synopsys, a specialised AI model designed to perform semiconductor design workflows using Synopsys’ electronic design automation (EDA) tools.

 

The partnership comes as AI companies and semiconductor firms are increasingly exploring the use of AI to accelerate chip design and optimisation.

 

Under the multi-year agreement, the companies will jointly develop and deliver GPT-Synopsys, combining OpenAI’s frontier AI capabilities with Synopsys’ EDA tools and chip design expertise.

 

As part of the agreement, OpenAI will license Synopsys’ EDA tools for the development of the specialised model. The two firms will also collaborate on research and development and joint go-to-market initiatives under a shared revenue framework.

 

GPT-Synopsys is designed to use frontier AI models to operate Synopsys’ EDA tools, interpret their outputs and iteratively optimise chip designs, the companies said in a press release.

 

The model will enable engineers to delegate design objectives such as power, performance and area (PPA) optimisation, timing and verification closure to AI agents. The agents will run the tools, interpret results, implement changes and iterate towards verified outcomes for engineer review.

 

The joint service offering will bundle compute, the model and tool licences. GPT-Synopsys will run on OpenAI-hosted infrastructure and is designed to interoperate with customer agent harness systems. It will also be integrated with Synopsys.ai and the Synopsys Autopilot agentic AI platform.

 

The companies said early technology engagements with leading semiconductor customers are already underway.

 

GPT-Synopsys will include enterprise-grade security, governance and access controls, with customer data encrypted at rest and in transit. The companies said customer data will not be used to train the model and will be subject to configurable retention, audit and permission controls.