Amazon announces strategic partnership with OpenAI, to invest $50 billion for AI innovation
According to the companies’ statement on Friday, e-commerce giant Amazon planned to invest $50 billion in OpenAI, starting with $15 billion and adding another $35 billion in the coming months.
The latest investment is part of a major funding round for OpenAI, which has raised $110 billion in new capital at a preliminary valuation of $730 billion. Of this figure, $30 billion comes from SoftBank and $30 billion comes from Nvidia.
“OpenAI and Amazon today announced a multi-year strategic partnership to accelerate AI innovation for businesses, startups, and end consumers worldwide. Amazon will also invest $50 billion in OpenAI, starting with an initial investment of $15 billion, followed by another $35 billion in the coming months when certain conditions are met,” the statement said.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) will serve as the exclusive third-party cloud provider for OpenAI Frontier, the enterprise platform used by the creator of ChatGPT to develop, deploy and manage AI agents. OpenAI will also spend another $100 billion on Amazon Web Services over the next 8 years. In November, the two companies announced a deal in which the modeler would use approximately $38 billion in AWS services over seven years.
According to the companies, OpenAI will use 2 gigawatts of capacity powered by Amazon’s in-house Trainium chips to support computing demand.
OpenAI and rival Anthropic PBC have stepped up fundraising efforts this year to finance expensive investments in chips and data centers for their artificial intelligence software. Both startups are increasingly engaging the same group of venture funds and big tech investors.
The significant investment from Amazon, a long-time supporter of Anthropic, further strengthens its ties with OpenAI.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp., OpenAI’s biggest backer and former private infrastructure partner, said its relationship with the developer remains strong. “Nothing about today’s announcements in any way changes the terms of the Microsoft and OpenAI relationship,” the companies said in a joint statement Friday.
