OpenAI says it's 'out of GPUs' as supply struggles continue across AI and gaming

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that the company is "out of GPUs," delaying the broader rollout of its newest model, GPT-4.5. In a post on X, Altman described the model as "giant" and "expensive," explaining that OpenAI needs tens of thousands more GPUs to support additional users. GPT-4.5 will roll out first to ChatGPT Pro subscribers, followed by ChatGPT Plus users next week.

The high demand for GPUs is largely driven by GPT-4.5's sheer size and computational cost. OpenAI is charging $75 per million tokens for input and $150 per million tokens for output - 30x and 15x higher than its previous GPT-4o model. This massive increase in compute requirements has put additional strain on OpenAI's hardware infrastructure.

"This isn't how we want to operate, but it's hard to perfectly predict growth surges that lead to GPU shortages," Altman said.

He previously cited limited computing capacity as a bottleneck for OpenAI's product releases, a challenge the company is trying to address by developing its own AI chips and expanding its data center network.

While OpenAI's immediate bottleneck is securing enough NVIDIA H100 GPUs, the broader GPU market is also feeling the squeeze. Manufacturing issues affecting NVIDIA's RTX 5000 series have led to significant supply shortages and price hikes. At the same time, tariffs and potential export restrictions are adding more uncertainty, further straining the already stretched GPU supply chain.

For now, OpenAI remains dependent on securing more GPUs before it can expand access to GPT-4.5, 10,000 of which they're expected to add next week.