June 27 (Reuters) - OpenAI has recently begun renting

Google's artificial intelligence chips to power

ChatGPT and other products, The Information reported on Friday,

citing a person involved in the arrangement.

The move, which marks the first time OpenAI has used

non-Nvidia ( NVDA ) chips in a meaningful way, shows the Sam Altman-led

company's shift away from relying on backer Microsoft's ( MSFT )

data centers, potentially boosting Google's tensor processing

units (TPUs) as a cheaper alternative to Nvidia's ( NVDA )

graphics processing units (GPUs), the report said.

As one of the largest purchasers of Nvidia's ( NVDA ) GPUs, OpenAI

uses AI chips to train models and also for inference computing,

a process in which an AI model uses its trained knowledge to

make predictions or decisions based on new information.

OpenAI hopes the TPUs, which it rents through Google Cloud,

will help lower the cost of inference, according to the report.

However, Google, an OpenAI competitor in the AI race, is not

renting its most powerful TPUs to its rival, The Information

said, citing a Google Cloud employee.

Both OpenAI and Google did not immediately respond to

Reuters requests for comment.

OpenAI planned to add Google Cloud service to meet its

growing needs for computing capacity, Reuters had exclusively

reported earlier this month, marking a surprising collaboration

between two prominent competitors in the AI sector.

For Google, the deal comes as it is expanding external

availability of its in-house TPUs, which were historically

reserved for internal use. That helped Google win customers

including Big Tech player Apple ( AAPL ) as well as startups

like Anthropic and Safe Superintelligence, two OpenAI

competitors launched by former OpenAI leaders.