OpenAI Jalapeño: Better Than Nvidia Blackwell
Summary
The article analyzes OpenAI's Jalapeño inference ASIC, claiming generalized inference capabilities and hardware-software co-design that purportedly outperforms Nvidia's Blackwell on perf/W in InferenceX benchmarks. It covers architectural choices (HBM4, NoC, homogeneous pools, Gluon) and a rack-scale system design, with caveats about benchmark scope and the maturity of OpenAI's software stack. It also discusses implications for data-center power efficiency and CUDA moat dynamics.