Tech investor warns OpenAI deals with Nvidia and AMD are 'purely announcements', says: ‘Now we will see what…’

Tech investor and founder of Altimeter Capital, Brad Gerstner, has cautioned that OpenAI's deals with chipmakers Nvidia and AMD are “purely announcements, not deployments” which does not automatically mean those chips have been manufactured, delivered, installed or are operational.

“Now we will see what gets delivered. Ultimately, the best chips will win,” Gerstner told CNBC, implying that the true competition is still open, and the company that can actually secure and implement the most powerful, highest-performing chips will ultimately lead the AI race.

Gerstner believes the megadeals serve as "more evidence that the world will remain compute-constrained despite best efforts to bring massive supply online."

OpenAI president Greg Brockman says industry facing compute scarcity

OpenAI President Greg Brockman echoed the scarcity concern, emphasising the need for the entire industry to collaborate to meet the immense demand for AI services.

“What we’re really seeing is a world where there’s going to be absolute compute scarcity... and not just from OpenAI, really from the whole ecosystem,” he stated.

The need for supply is also driven by geopolitical competition, with AI being a key element in the US-China rivalry.

Earlier this year, DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the industry, claiming to have a lower-cost AI model than its US competitors and continuing to innovate by delivering new open-sourced models using domestically made AI chips.

A report last week from the US government, as noted by Axios, warned of national security concerns surrounding OpenAI's Chinese rival, DeepSeek. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation found that DeepSeek provides Chinese Communist Party views more frequently than US models.