OpenAI’s Custom Chips lead Clive Chan leaves, joins Anthropic; says in announcement post: I have not been able to …
OpenAI’s Custom Chip program lead Clive Chan just announced his is leaving Sam Altman’s company to join Anthropic. Chan joined OpenAI in January 2024. As per Chan’s LinkedIn his designation at OpenAI was Member of Technical Staff and it is the same designation that he is joining Anthropic. Chan announced his decision in a ‘Personal update’ on X, formerly Twitter. OpenAI losing its key chip person to its biggest rival is seen as a setback to the company’s custom chip efforts at a time OpenAI is heading to an IPO. Custom ASICs are one of the hottest hardware technologies right now. Custom chips are reportedly growing 44.6% in 2026, 3x faster than merchant GPUs. Google has TPU. Amazon has Trainium. Microsoft has Maia. OpenAI too is building its own, and now the person who is led the program is leaving for Anthropic.
Clive Chan’s ‘resignation post’ titled ‘Personal update’
I’ve decided to leave OpenAI.I’m proud to have been part of the custom chip program and grateful to everyone I got to build with and learn from along the way. The density of hardware talent on that team is extraordinary, and I don’t think there’s a better chip design team anywhere. It’s been a wild journey from second hardware hire, 2.4 years ago, to now, and I’m excited to watch these chips become one of the most important engines of AGI.At the same time, I haven’t been able to shake the pull to climb a new mountain from the bottom again!I joined @AnthropicAI this week because I was deeply impressed with the team’s talent, values, and ambition, and I’m already energized by the pace and intensity of the past few days. It’s time to build.
Clive Chan left Tesla to join OpenAI
Clive Chan had left Tesla’s Dojo team to join OpenAI in January 2024. Chan spent two and a half years at the automotive company, where he worked as a senior software engineer at the Autopilot deep learning infrastructure team.As per his LinkedIn, there he worked on “machine learning training ASIC: software framework bring up, data center codesign, power efficient number formats, weekly with CEO.” He said on/X: “Since 2021 I’ve had the honor to train in the Tesla Dojo under true masters of the silicon arts. The world is now shifting. All eyes on AGI. One team – of people I’ve always looked up to – blazes the widest trail.” Dojo is the name for multiple Tesla supercomputers that use the company’s custom D1-chips, manufactured by TSMC. Tesla had first detailed Dojo in 2021, and installed the initial system in 2022. That version of Dojo has around 3,000 D1 chips.Chan’s departure followed the departure of the senior director of autopilot and project lead for the company’s Dojo supercomputer, Ganesh Venkataramanan, in early December. A week later, Tesla’s head of AI infrastructure Tim Zaman announced that he would join Google DeepMind.
