OpenAI and Synopsys Team Up to Build AI for Chip Design

OpenAI and semiconductor design software company Synopsys have announced a multi-year partnership to develop GPT-Synopsys, an AI model specifically designed for chip engineering. The project will combine OpenAI’s AI models with Synopsys’ electronic design automation (EDA) software, allowing the AI system to work directly with tools used by engineers to design and verify semiconductor chips. The companies say the goal is to help engineers explore more design options and shorten the time required to develop advanced chips.

GPT-Synopsys is being developed to handle complex stages of chip design, from understanding circuit descriptions to optimising the arrangement of billions of transistors on silicon. The model will be trained to operate Synopsys’ EDA tools, interpret their results and repeatedly adjust designs based on objectives such as power consumption, performance and physical area. Engineers will be able to delegate certain design and verification tasks to AI agents while retaining human review of the resulting designs.

Under the agreement, OpenAI will license Synopsys’ EDA tools for development of the specialised model. The companies will also collaborate on research, development and commercial activities under a shared-revenue arrangement. Reuters reported that OpenAI will pay Synopsys a training subscription fee, while future revenue generated when customers use the model will be shared between the companies based on the value delivered by the system.

The partnership also includes safeguards intended to ensure that AI-generated chip designs meet engineering and manufacturing requirements. GPT-Synopsys will use Synopsys’ conventional verification technologies to check whether proposed designs are physically valid before they can move toward manufacturing. The companies said the service will include enterprise security, governance and access controls, while customer design data will be encrypted and will not be used to train the model.

The collaboration comes as semiconductor companies increasingly explore AI-driven engineering tools to cope with the complexity of modern chip development. Synopsys said early technology engagements with leading semiconductor customers are already underway, with GPT-Synopsys expected to work alongside its Synopsys.ai and Autopilot platforms. If successfully deployed, the technology could give chip engineers a way to automate portions of design exploration and optimisation while keeping traditional verification processes in place.