OpenAI in Talks with Amazon About Investment That Could Exceed $10 Billion
OpenAI is reportedly in discussions with Amazon regarding a potential investment and a strategic agreement to use Amazon’s artificial intelligence chips, CNBC confirmed on Tuesday.
Sources familiar with the talks indicated that the investment could exceed $10 billion, although details remain fluid and subject to change.
The discussions follow OpenAI’s recent corporate restructuring in October 2025, which formally outlined the terms of its partnership with Microsoft.
The move has given OpenAI greater freedom to raise capital and collaborate with other technology companies across the AI ecosystem.
Since 2019, Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI and supported its development, but the tech giant no longer holds exclusive rights to be OpenAI’s compute provider. OpenAI is now able to develop select products with third-party partners.
Amazon has previously invested at least $8 billion into OpenAI rival Anthropic and appears keen to increase its footprint in the rapidly growing generative AI market.
Microsoft recently followed suit, announcing plans to invest up to $5 billion into Anthropic, while Nvidia is reportedly investing up to $10 billion in the same company.
The potential OpenAI-Amazon collaboration could also involve Amazon Web Services (AWS) supplying its AI chips, which have been in development since 2015.
AWS introduced its Inferentia chips in 2018 and launched the latest generation of Trainium chips earlier this month. These high-performance processors are critical for AI companies seeking to train large models and meet growing computational demands.
OpenAI has already made over $1.4 trillion in infrastructure commitments in recent months, securing agreements with chipmakers including Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Broadcom. In November, the company signed a deal to purchase $38 billion in cloud capacity from AWS, its first direct contract with the cloud computing leader.
The financial positioning comes on the heels of OpenAI’s $6.6 billion secondary share sale in October, which allowed current and former employees to sell stock at a $500 billion valuation.
Industry analysts suggest that an OpenAI-Amazon agreement could further accelerate the AI arms race, providing the startup with access to Amazon’s robust cloud infrastructure and custom-designed chips, while expanding AWS’s influence in generative AI applications.
