OpenAI may plan to power 2028 smartphones with custom chips

OpenAI announced a deal with Broadcom last year to develop custom AI chips to power its next-generation computer clusters. It turns out that the company may not stop at custom chips for infrastructure, as the company apparently has bigger plans for the smartphone silicon space.

TF International Securities Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo It was claimed on Twitter that OpenAI is working with MediaTek and Qualcomm to build smartphone processors as part of its plans for AI phones. Mass production is likely to take place in 2028.

“Power consumption, memory hierarchy management and basic small-model execution will be the key processor design considerations,” the analyst was quoted as saying. Like today’s top Android phones, Kuo says that more complex/demanding tasks will be handled by cloud AI. This is no big deal, as cloud-based AI will always be more powerful and capable than local AI models.

However, what about specific chipset features? The analyst says we should expect specifications and suppliers to be finalized in late 2026 or the first quarter of next year.

I imagine that any future custom processor for OpenAI phones will prioritize AI silicon over other hardware bits. This would be roughly in line with Google Pixel phones, which emphasize AI capabilities more than raw horsepower. However, some machine learning models fall back on GPUs or CPUs if they are not optimized for dedicated AI silicon. However, this may not be a problem if the OpenAI phone only runs the in-house model. But new processors may not make major compromises with the CPU or GPU if the phone needs to run alternative AI models.

Kuo also hints that future phones will need to understand the user’s context “continuously.” So I wouldn’t be surprised if the OpenAI chipset has extensive always-on functionality. However, this won’t be the first mobile processor with this capability, as Qualcomm’s Sensing Hub on recent chips also supports “low-power, always-on” scenarios.

Otherwise, Kuo says Chinese suppliers Luxshare and Foxconn rivals will be exclusive “system co-design and manufacturing partners.” It certainly seems like the pieces are coming together for OpenAI smartphones.

Thanks to Dylan for the tip!