SAN FRANCISCO, United States — Synopsys and OpenAI have partnered to develop an artificial intelligence model designed to assist engineers with semiconductor chip design, bringing generative AI deeper into one of the technology industry’s most complex engineering processes.
The partnership will create a model called GPT-Synopsys that is being trained to work with Synopsys’ electronic design automation software. The companies aim to use the system to help engineers manage design tasks and optimize the development of chips containing billions of transistors.
AI enters the chip design workflow
Modern semiconductor development requires engineers to make thousands of decisions involving performance, power consumption, manufacturing constraints and physical layout.
Synopsys provides software used by chip designers to manage many of these processes. By combining its tools with OpenAI’s models, the companies aim to automate portions of the workflow and reduce the time required to move from an initial chip concept toward a production ready design.
OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman said the technology could help engineers work through design tradeoffs and potentially reduce development timelines.
The model will not operate without verification. Synopsys said traditional software tools will continue to check the AI system’s work and validate whether a proposed design meets the necessary technical requirements.
Chip industry becomes a major AI application
The partnership illustrates how AI is moving beyond general purpose productivity tools into highly specialized engineering applications.
Chip designers are under increasing pressure to develop more powerful processors as demand grows for artificial intelligence, data centers, smartphones and other advanced computing systems. Reducing the time required to design new chips could therefore have significant implications for the broader technology supply chain.
Synopsys also raised its fiscal 2027 revenue growth outlook to 15%, above analyst expectations of 11.19%, according to LSEG data. Its shares rose as much as 7% following the partnership and forecast announcement.
The companies are also using a revenue sharing model. OpenAI will pay Synopsys a training subscription fee, while revenue generated when Synopsys customers use the resulting product will be shared between the two companies.
For the technology industry, the partnership demonstrates a growing trend toward specialized AI systems that work directly inside professional software. If the model can reduce chip development time while maintaining engineering accuracy, similar approaches could eventually spread to other highly technical industries.
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