OpenAI and Dell launch Codex 4M

OpenAI and Dell Technologies said on May 18 they are partnering to bring Codex into hybrid and on-premises enterprise environments, extending the coding and agentic AI product beyond public-cloud deployments. The companies said the arrangement is aimed at enterprises that want Codex to run closer to internal codebases, documentation, systems of record and other governed data. OpenAI said Codex will connect with the Dell AI Data Platform, while the companies will also explore links between Codex and Dell AI Factory. Neither company disclosed pricing or a commercial availability date for the broader deployment model. More than 4 million developers now use Codex every week, OpenAI said in a post announcing the partnership. Dell said in March that the Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA had more than 4,000 customers, a figure the company cited as part of its broader enterprise AI push. The tie-up brings together a fast-growing OpenAI product with Dell’s infrastructure business as companies try to move AI tools from pilots into production systems. ### Why are OpenAI and Dell putting Codex on-premises now? OpenAI said enterprises need Codex to work securely across the hybrid and on-premises environments where their “most important data, systems, and workflows already live.” The company said those environments include the Dell AI Data Platform and Dell AI Factory, which many businesses already use for storage, governance and AI workloads. (openai.com) Dell said in its March AI Factory update that CIOs are increasingly choosing to build AI capabilities in-house and on-premises as code assistants and agentic workflows reduce the cost and time needed to build custom applications. That statement provides the clearest explanation from the companies for the timing of the partnership: customers want AI systems that can operate inside existing enterprise infrastructure rather than only through external cloud services. (openai.com) ### What exactly will the partnership connect? OpenAI said Codex will connect with the Dell AI Data Platform so customers can bring the product closer to internal context such as code repositories, documentation, business systems, operational knowledge and team workflows. The company said that internal context is what makes agents useful in production settings. (dell.com) The companies also said they will explore how Codex can connect with Dell AI Factory. OpenAI said that work includes possible ways for Codex, ChatGPT Enterprise and other API-based tools to interface with AI Factory to prepare data, manage systems of record, run tests and deploy AI applications integrated with a company’s hybrid or on-premises Dell infrastructure. (openai.com) ### What numbers matter most in this launch? OpenAI said on April 21 that Codex had grown from more than 3 million weekly users in early April to more than 4 million just two weeks later. The company described Codex as one of its fastest-growing enterprise products and said customers are already using it for code review, test coverage, incident response and reasoning across large repositories. (openai.com) Dell said on March 16 that the Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA had more than 4,000 customers and that early adopters had seen up to 2.6 times return on investment within the first year. Dell used those figures to argue that enterprises are moving from experimentation toward production AI deployments. (openai.com) ### Which companies are already using Codex in enterprises? OpenAI said Virgin Atlantic is using Codex to increase test coverage and team velocity, Ramp is using it to accelerate code review, Notion is using it to build new features, Cisco is using it to reason across large repositories and Rakuten is using it for incident response. The company said those examples show Codex spreading across the software development lifecycle and into broader knowledge-work tasks. (dell.com) Ihab Tarazi, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions Group, said the partnership combines Dell’s enterprise infrastructure with OpenAI’s agentic AI models. Tarazi said the Dell AI Factory with OpenAI Codex will let enterprises deploy AI “where enterprise data already lives” and give customers “a practical, secure path” to deploying AI agents at scale. (openai.com) ### What comes next from here? OpenAI and Dell said the next step is exploratory integration work tying Codex, ChatGPT Enterprise and API-based products into Dell AI Factory and the Dell AI Data Platform. The companies did not give a release date, pricing or a list of launch customers for the new hybrid and on-premises setup. (openai.com)