OpenAI, Amazon sign $US38b deal for AI computing power
OpenAI and Amazon signed a $38 billion deal that will allow the ChatGPT maker to run its AI systems in Amazon’s data centers in the US.
As part of the announced deal, OpenAI will be able to power its AI tools using “hundreds of thousands” of Nvidia’s custom AI chips through Amazon Web Services.
The seven-year deal comes less than a week after OpenAI changed its partnership with longtime backer Microsoft, which until earlier this year was the startup’s private cloud computing provider.
California and Delaware regulators last week also allowed San Francisco-based OpenAI, which was incorporated as a nonprofit, to move forward with a plan to create a new business structure to more easily raise capital and turn a profit.
“The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence technology has created unprecedented demand for computing power,” Amazon said in a statement.
He said OpenAI “will begin using AWS computing immediately as part of this partnership, with full capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026 and expandable into 2027 and beyond.”
AI requires huge amounts of energy and computing power, and OpenAI has long signaled that it needs more capacity both to develop new AI systems and to keep existing products like ChatGPT answering the questions of its hundreds of millions of users.
It recently incurred more than $1 trillion in spending on AI infrastructure, including data center projects with Oracle and SoftBank and semiconductor supply deals with chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom.
Some of the deals have raised investors’ concerns about their “cyclical” nature, with OpenAI not making a profit and cloud backers yet to be able to pay for the infrastructure it provides relative to their expectations for future returns on their investments.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week dismissed skeptics who he said had raised “breathtaking concerns” about the deals.
“Revenue is growing rapidly. We’re making a forward-looking bet that it will continue to grow,” Altman said in a podcast in which he appeared with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Amazon is already the primary cloud provider for AI startup Anthropic, an OpenAI rival that makes the Claude chatbot.
