Amazon could invest up to $50B in OpenAI in coming weeks

Amazon CNBC confirmed Thursday that the e-commerce giant is in talks to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI, a significant vote of confidence after investing in one of the startup’s biggest rivals.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy are in direct talks, according to a source familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the details are confidential.

Amazon has pumped billions of dollars into OpenAI rival Anthropic since 2023.

Details of Amazon’s talks with OpenAI are still unclear and the final total could change, but the term sheet could be signed in the coming weeks, the person said.

A representative for Amazon declined to comment. Wall Street Magazine He was the first to report the $50 billion figure.

OpenAI is also in fundraising talks with other investors and the total round could be close to $100 billion, the source said. As CNBC previously reported, Altman was in the United Arab Emirates last week to participate in investment talks with sovereign wealth funds.

The startup’s financing round can be completed in two parts, starting with investments from strategic companies such as Amazon. Microsoft And Nvidiasaid the person. Other contributions will also come from participants such as SoftBank, which is in talks to invest up to $30 billion in OpenAI, the source said.

The startup was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab and went mainstream in 2022 after launching its generative AI chatbot ChatGPT. OpenAI has become one of the largest commercial assets on the planet, and its value soared to $500 billion in October after completing a secondary share sale.

Amazon and OpenAI have been in talks about a potential investment since last year, and as CNBC previously reported, the final deal could also include a deal to use Amazon’s AI chips.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI executives and researchers, including CEO Dario Amodei. The company is best known for its family of AI models called Claude and closed a multibillion-dollar funding round earlier this month at a $350 billion valuation.

Amazon Web Services takes Anthropic’s name primary cloud provider in 2023 and primary training partner He continues to serve in both roles in 2024.

Amazon is cutting costs across its business to invest more in artificial intelligence and the rapid creation of data centers.

On Wednesday, Amazon announced it would lay off nearly 16,000 corporate employees, marking the second round of mass layoffs since last October.

Last October, Amazon opened an $11 billion data center campus for Anthropic in Indiana called Project Rainier.

Amazon said the same month that it expects capital spending to reach $125 billion for 2026; this was the highest spending estimate among mega-cap companies at the time.

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