OpenAI says ‘our GPUs are melting’ as it limits ChatGPT image generation requests

The fervor around ChatGPT’s more accessible (and more advanced) image generation capabilities has forced OpenAI to “temporarily” put a rate limit on image generation requests, according to CEO Sam Altman. “It’s super fun seeing people love images in ChatGPT, but our GPUs are melting,” he posted on X today. Altman didn’t specify what the rate limit is, but said the safeguard “hopefully” won’t need to be in place for very long as OpenAI tries to increase its efficiency in handling the avalanche of requests.

The demand crunch already caused the artificial intelligence company to push back availability of the built-in image generator for users on ChatGPT’s free tier. But apparently that measure alone wasn’t enough to ease the stress on OpenAI’s infrastructure. (Altman said free users will “soon” be able to generate up to three images per day.)

OpenAI is leveraging its GPT-4o model for the newly-improved image generation tool. The resulting creations are often even more realistic than before — though you can take it in any number of directions — and the new model has also made strides with past hurdles like text rendering. In an interview with The Verge, the company described it as a “step change” above prior models. But the rate limiting is yet another reminder of just how much tech horsepower (and energy) is required to generate images inside ChatGPT.