Amazon is negotiating a deal that could see it pour as much as $50 billion into OpenAI, people familiar with the discussions told the Wall Street Journal. If completed, the investment would position Amazon as the dominant financial backer of the ChatGPT creator’s current fundraising effort.
The talks are being driven directly by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, though the specifics remain in flux. OpenAI is pursuing fresh capital of up to $100 billion, a raise that could push the company’s valuation to $830 billion. Beyond Amazon, SoftBank is working toward a separate commitment of up to $30 billion, building on the Japanese conglomerate’s existing position. Other participants include Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and venture firms already invested, such as Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, and the UAE’s MGX fund.
The deal would expand an already significant relationship. Last November, OpenAI committed to spending $38 billion on Amazon Web Services computing power over several years, a move that reduced its dependence on Microsoft’s infrastructure.
Damilare Odedina
Backing both sides of the AI race
What stands out isn’t just the dollar amount—it’s the strategy behind it. Amazon has already committed $8 billion to Anthropic, the startup competing head-to-head with OpenAI for enterprise customers. Amazon went further, constructing an $11 billion data center campus in Indiana dedicated exclusively to running Anthropic’s Claude models. The company also serves as Anthropic’s primary cloud provider.
Now Amazon is preparing to double down on the other side. Combined, the two investments would total $58 billion—a dual bet that hedges Amazon’s position no matter which company ends up dominating the enterprise AI market.
It’s an approach that only a company with Amazon’s scale can execute. While Microsoft locked itself into OpenAI with more than $13 billion invested and exclusive integration rights through 2030, Amazon is building leverage across competing platforms. The calculus is straightforward: whichever AI model captures the enterprise market, Amazon’s cloud infrastructure business benefits.
Funding AI’s future while cutting costs at home
OpenAI’s fundraising push reflects the financial reality of building cutting-edge AI. Training advanced models and retaining top researchers in a hypercompetitive talent market requires constant capital infusions. The company has already raised tens of billions, and it recently introduced advertising as an additional revenue stream to complement subscriptions and enterprise contracts. OpenAI is also weighing a potential IPO, though timing remains uncertain.
For Amazon, the investment comes against a backdrop of aggressive cost management. The company announced Wednesday it would eliminate roughly 16,000 corporate positions, following a separate round of 14,000 cuts in October. The reductions are part of a broader effort to redirect resources toward AI infrastructure and data center expansion, areas where Amazon sees long-term growth.
Representatives for both Amazon and OpenAI declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations.
The outcome of these talks will reveal more than just how much Amazon is willing to spend. It will show whether the company believes the AI market will consolidate around a single winner—or whether the future belongs to whoever can afford to back them all.
Damilare Odedina
