Amazon is in talks to invest over $10 billion in OpenAI as AI cloud rivalry heats up
The deal could see OpenAI gaining access to Amazon’s in-house Trainium chips for AI training.
OpenAI has come a long way from its roots as a research-focused non-profit. Over the past year, the company has been making some eye-watering moves. It renegotiated its partnership with Microsoft to reduce reliance on a single partner, signed a massive cloud deal with Oracle, and more recently announced a multibillion-dollar agreement with Amazon for access to its cloud infrastructure. Each step has pushed OpenAI further into the global AI stage.
Now, Amazon appears ready to raise the stakes even further. The two companies are reportedly in talks over a fresh investment that could see Amazon put more than $10 billion into OpenAI. Beyond the cash, the discussions also include OpenAI using Amazon’s in-house Trainium chips for AI training, offering an alternative to Nvidia’s increasingly dominant (and expensive) hardware, as well as Google’s own AI accelerators.
Emmanuel Umahi
Sources familiar with the matter stress that the talks are still in the early stages and remain “very fluid,” meaning the final numbers, or even the structure of the deal, could change significantly. But, given OpenAI’s current valuation, an Amazon investment could reinforce the company’s meteoric rise.
That alone would be a major milestone, especially in a market where even the biggest AI players are feeling the pressure of soaring compute costs and intense competition.
For Amazon, the appeal is fairly clear. A deeper financial and technical relationship with OpenAI would strengthen AWS’s position in the AI cloud race, where it’s competing aggressively with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Getting OpenAI to train models on Trainium chips would also be a strong endorsement of Amazon’s hardware strategy, potentially attracting other AI startups looking for alternatives to Nvidia.
Damilare Odedina
For OpenAI, the deal fits neatly into a broader diversification strategy. Since restructuring its agreement with Microsoft last October, which loosened exclusivity around compute and partnerships, OpenAI has been free to work more widely across the AI ecosystem, a strategy it’s actively pursuing. That flexibility is increasingly important as the company prepares for what could be a historic IPO.
At the same time, OpenAI is laying the groundwork for a public offering that could value the company at up to $1 trillion. It’s already seen its valuation soar past $500 billion following a record-breaking $40 billion funding round, so another mega-investment would only add fuel to that trajectory.
Either way, as mentioned earlier, all these investment talks are still very uncertain as the discussion is still in its early stages, so we could end up seeing an investment from Amazon that's lower than this. Or we could end up with something much higher. If anything, it's a clear sign that OpenAI’s growth story is far from slowing down.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
