Foxconn says an OpenAI deal is coming and the AI boom is not a bubble

A deal is in the works, with the details still open

Foxconn chairman Young Liu told reporters on Friday that a collaboration with OpenAI was in the works, though he gave few specifics. Liu spoke at the company's annual technology showcase in Taipei, and said he had met OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman earlier that day. He said there would be an announcement once the details were confirmed, and did not elaborate.

The companies are not starting from zero. Any new agreement would build on last year's arrangement between Foxconn and OpenAI to work together on designing and engineering data-centre racks, components and other AI hardware. Foxconn, formally Hon Hai Precision Industry, is the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer and Nvidia's biggest maker of AI servers. The open question is what the new phase adds: more manufacturing capacity, a tighter design role, or both.

The visit also drew attention beyond the two companies. Taiwan's Central News Agency reported that Altman's low-key trip raised market interest in whether he would meet other heavyweight supply-chain companies. That is worth watching because a deeper OpenAI relationship with Foxconn would still depend on the same island's chip and component suppliers. CNA also noted that the two companies announced their infrastructure agreement at Foxconn's technology day in 2025.

Foxconn's revenue mix has already tilted toward AI

The company's dependence on AI infrastructure is no longer a forecast. In August, Foxconn said its cloud and networking products segment, which includes AI servers, accounted for 51 percent of second-quarter revenue, the first time the segment has passed half. The rest of the business, from smartphones to consumer electronics, still matters, but it is no longer the growth story.

Liu said Foxconn has six factory buildings in Houston, Texas, where it manufactures AI servers for Nvidia, and that it sees a need for further expansion there. That detail matters for how a deeper OpenAI relationship would be delivered: as capacity in the United States, where AI hardware supply chains are being rebuilt, rather than only as assembly in Asia.

Liu says the boom is real and guides for double-digit growth

Liu used the event to push back on the market's central worry. AI-sector stocks have been hit hard by concerns that relentless heavy investment is not sustainable as borrowing costs climb. Liu said the industry was not in a bubble and that Foxconn expects to maintain double-digit growth next year, according to Reuters.

That is a company chairman's forecast, not an audited result, and it sits against a market that has spent weeks marking down the cost side of the AI trade. The claim is testable in one place the company controls: whether the cloud and networking segment keeps growing faster than the rest of Foxconn, and whether the Houston expansion shows up in capital spending before it shows up in revenue.

More than ten humanoid robots already work in Texas

AI hardware is not the only thing Foxconn is building. Brand Cheng, chairman of unit Foxconn Industrial Internet, told Reuters on Friday that more than 10 humanoid robots had been deployed at the company's Texas facilities for internal use, and that Foxconn plans to extend the deployment beyond Texas. Presentation materials shown to Reuters described two wheeled models introduced in October: one that lifts things vertically, and one that bends at the waist for assembly and for loading and unloading tasks.

The unit is developing robot models based on Nvidia's GR00T foundation model, according to the same report. The number is small, and internal use is a long way from a product. But it explains why Foxconn frames itself as more than an assembler: the company wants to be the place where AI models, AI servers and the robots that build them meet.

What the announcement still has to answer

Three things are unresolved. First, the scope: whether the new OpenAI work covers rack-level design, component sourcing, or final assembly, and how much of it is new rather than a restatement of the 2025 agreement. Second, the money: any expansion in Houston implies capital spending before revenue, at a moment when investors are punishing exactly that trade, as the reaction to Meta's $97.5 billion AI equity raise showed.

Third, the customer list. Foxconn's AI server business is closely tied to Nvidia, and OpenAI's reported interest in buying Google chips shows that the compute supply chain is still being renegotiated, as this site reported on OpenAI's chip purchase plan. A Foxconn deal would put one more piece of OpenAI's hardware plans on the record. Until the details are published, the honest reading is that Foxconn has confirmed talks, not terms; for context on how OpenAI packages its enterprise work, see our report on its ServiceNow partnership.

It is also worth being precise about what Friday produced. Reuters reported a meeting, an intention to announce, and a chairman's denial of a bubble. It did not report a signed contract, a dollar figure, a delivery date or a factory location for OpenAI work. Those absences are the story as much as the confirmation is, because Foxconn's shares and its customers react to capacity commitments, and none was disclosed.