Amazon in talks to invest $10 billion in OpenAI as circular AI deals raise investor concerns

Amazon reportedly in talks to invest $10B in OpenAI as circular deals stay popular | TechCrunch

Amazon is in early discussions to invest as much as $10 billion in OpenAI in a deal that would see the AI lab using the e-commerce giant's AI chips, CNBC reported. If it materializes, the deal would value OpenAI at more than $500 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing an anonymous source. Amazon has been looking to diversify its bets in the AI race, which has so far seen it partner up and invest $8 billion in Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI. The e-commerce giant earlier this month also unveiled the latest iteration in its Trainium series of chips, and outlined the development of the next installment of those chips, complementing its cloud computing offerings via Amazon Web Services. News of the deal comes a couple months after OpenAI completed its transition to a for-profit model, which gives it more freedom to strike deals with investors other than Microsoft, one of the company's earliest backers with a stake of 27%. Amazon investing in OpenAI would mark the latest in a series of circular deals in the AI space -- major hardware manufacturers and cloud providers strike deals with young AI companies to use their products, while the upstarts commit to using their data centers and chips for training their AI models. This past March, OpenAI invested $350 million of equity into CoreWeave, which used the funds to buy chips from its backer Nvidia. Those same chips provide compute to OpenAI, which increases CoreWeave's revenue and in the end makes OpenAI's stake more valuable. Then in October, OpenAI signed a deal to pick up a 10% stake in AMD and committed to using the chipmaker's AI GPUs, and also signed a chip usage agreement with Broadcom that month. And in November, the ChatGPT maker signed a $38 billion cloud computing deal with Amazon. OpenAI and Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

OpenAI May Raise $10 Billion From Amazon, The Information Says

OpenAI is in initial discussions to raise at least $10 billion from Amazon.com Inc. and use its chips, a potential win for the online retailer's effort to broaden its AI industry presence and compete with Nvidia Corp. The deal under discussion could value OpenAI north of $500 billion and see it adopt Amazon's Trainium chip, a person with knowledge of the matter said, asking to remain anonymous to describe private negotiations. Talks, however, are at a preliminary stage and terms could change, the person added.

Amazon in talks to invest $10 billion in OpenAI and supply its Trainium chips

Amazon is in discussions with OpenAI to invest $10 billion in the company while supplying more of its AI chips and cloud computing services, according to The Financial Times. The deal would push OpenAI's valuation over $500 billion but is likely to raise more questions about the company's circular investment agreements involving chips and data centers. The two companies are also in talks about the possibility of OpenAI helping Amazon with its online marketplace, similar to deals it has made with Etsy, Shopify and Instacart. However, any agreement still wouldn't allow Amazon to market OpenAI's most advanced models on its developer cloud platform, as Microsoft holds the exclusive rights to those until the 2030s. OpenAI recently restructured its agreement with Microsoft to allow it to use data center capacity from other suppliers. Around the same time, it made a string of deals with NVIDIA, Oracle, AMD and others to build out data center capacity and acquire or rent AI chips. The new deal would require OpenAI to use Amazon's Trainium AI chips and rent more data center capacity from Amazon Web Services (AWS). That's on top of the $38 billion that OpenAI has already committed to renting servers from AWS over the next seven years. These deals have sounded alarms among investors considering their circular nature. In many of those, including this latest Amazon deal, OpenAI is taking investment money and then sending that cash back to the same company for infrastructure or chips. And the amounts are staggering, with just two companies, Softbank and Oracle, spending a combined $400 billion on new data centers for OpenAI's compute needs. And so far, OpenAI has lost more money than it makes.

OpenAI in talks with Amazon about investment that could exceed $10 billion

The details are fluid and still subject to change but the investment could exceed $10 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the talks are confidential. The Information first reported on the potential deal. The discussions come after OpenAI completed a restructuring in October and formally outlined the details of its partnership with Microsoft, giving it more freedom to raise capital and partner with companies across the broader AI ecosystem. Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI and backed the company since 2019, but it no longer has a right of first refusal to be OpenAI's compute provider, according to an October release. OpenAI can now also develop some products with third parties. Amazon has invested at least $8 billion into OpenAI rival Anthropic, but the e-commerce giant could be looking to expand its exposure to the booming generative AI market. Microsoft has taken a similar step and announced last month that it will invest up to $5 billion into Anthropic, while Nvidia will invest up to $10 billion in the startup. Amazon Web Services has been designing its own AI chips since around 2015, and the hardware has become crucial for AI companies that are trying to train models and meet growing demand for compute. AWS announced its Inferentia chips in 2018, and the latest generation of its Trainium chips earlier this month. OpenAI has made more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure commitments in recent months, including agreements with chipmakers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom. Last month, OpenAI signed a deal to buy $38 billion worth of capacity from AWS, its first contract with the leader in cloud infrastructure leader. In October, OpenAI finalized a secondary share sale totaling $6.6 billion, allowing current and former employees to sell stock at a $500 billion valuation.

Amazon in talks to invest $10bn in developer of ChatGPT

OpenAI seeking to strike latest deal in its efforts to pay for huge spending on datacentres Amazon is in talks to invest more than $10bn (£7.5bn) in OpenAI, in the latest funding deal being struck by the startup behind ChatGPT. If it goes ahead, the market valuation of OpenAI could rise above $500bn, according to The Information, a tech news site that revealed the negotiations. Amazon, which is best known as an online retailer, is also the world's largest datacentre provider and its investment would help OpenAI pay for its commitments to rent capacity from cloud computing companies - including Amazon. OpenAI said last month that it would spend $38bn on capacity from Amazon Web Services - the company's datacentre arm - over seven years. The Information said that OpenAI planned to use Amazon's Trainium chips, which compete with Nvidia and Google's chips. It also reported that Amazon's financing could lead to a broader fundraising round with other investors. OpenAI's spending commitment on compute - the chips and servers that power its chatbot - is $1.4tn over the next eight years, a figure far in excess of its reported $13bn in annual revenues. As a result, the lossmaking company has been seeking further funding and has converted its main business into a for-profit corporation. Its main longtime backer, Microsoft, has taken a stake of roughly 27% in a deal that valued OpenAI at $500bn. OpenAI is also considering an initial public offering - selling its shares to the general public - in a move that could value the company at up to $1tn, according to Reuters. Other deals struck by OpenAI this year include Oracle spending $300bn on building datacentres in Texas, New Mexico, Michigan and Wisconsin. OpenAI is expected to pay back roughly the same amount to use the sites. In another transaction with Nvidia, OpenAI will pay in cash for chips and Nvidia will invest in OpenAI for non-controlling shares. OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it had hired the former UK chancellor George Osborne to develop relationships with governments around the world and broker national-level AI projects. Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, has declared a "code red" staff alert to lead a fightback against competitors led by Google, whose update of its Gemini AI tool gave it an edge over rivals including ChatGPT. The Amazon talks reportedly include discussing commercial opportunities and selling a corporate version of ChatGPT to the online retailer. OpenAI declined to comment. Amazon has been approached for comment.

OpenAI and Amazon in talks for $10 billion funding deal

OpenAI is in talks with Amazon for a $10 billion investment from the e-commerce giant, according to a new report, in a deal that could also let the ChatGPT maker use Amazon's AI chips. Reuters, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter, reports that the funding deal is not yet finalized and discussions remain fluid, but that it would value OpenAI at about $500 billion. OpenAI completed a restructuring in October that was designed to give it more freedom to pursue deals like this to raise capital. Against a backdrop of growing fears that valuations in the AI sector are overheating, OpenAI has forged ahead with a series of deals since then, including a $1 billion injection from Disney along with a licensing agreement allowing the use of its characters on OpenAI's video app Sora. The Amazon deal would also reportedly see OpenAI granted the ability to use Amazon's Trainium chip, which would mark a major win for the tech giant's semiconductor business. Nvidia still dominates the AI chip market, but companies such as Meta and Amazon are gaining traction with rival offerings. It would be the second major agreement between the two companies in recent months. In November, OpenAI agreed to buy $38 billion worth of capacity from Amazon Web Services, which chief executive Sam Altman said would help it expand towards the "massive, reliable compute" needed to scale the company. OpenAI has made more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure commitments in the last few months, including with chipmakers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom. The scale and circular nature of those deals has heightened fears that the AI industry could be operating in an investment bubble. Those concerns were renewed last week when Oracle's stock fell by as much as 16% following the release of its earnings report, which showed its AI spending far outpacing returns. It shaved as much as $70 billion off the company's valuation.

OpenAI to Use Amazon's AI Chips as Part of New $10 Bn Deal: Reports | AIM

Amazon is in talks to invest $10 billion in OpenAI, a report from Reuters stated. The report, which cited sources familiar with the matter, revealed that the negotiations between the two companies are "very fluid" at the moment. The deal could value OpenAI at more than $500 billion. Another report from Bloomberg stated that OpenAI could adopt Amazon Web Services' (AWS) Trainium AI chips as a part of this deal. The Trainium chips are custom AI accelerators built to reduce the cost and energy of training and deploying large models. At the re:Invent 2025 event, the company announced the general availability of EC2 Trn3 UltraServers, powered by the 3nm Trainium3 chip. Each UltraServer can scale to 144 chips, providing up to 362 FP8 petaflops of compute. AWS says Trainium3 delivers up to 4.4 times more compute, four times better energy efficiency, and nearly four times higher memory bandwidth than Trainium2. Trainium3 follows AWS's deployment of five lakh Trainium2 chips in Project Rainier with Anthropic, described as the world's largest AI compute cluster. AWS also previewed Trainium4, expected to deliver at least six times higher FP4 performance, with further gains in FP8 performance and memory bandwidth. In November, AWS and OpenAI announced a multi-year partnership worth $38 billion to run and scale OpenAI's core AI workloads on AWS infrastructure. Under that agreement, OpenAI will begin using AWS compute immediately, with all capacity targeted for deployment before the end of 2026 and additional expansion planned through 2027 and beyond. OpenAI's use of AWS Trainium chips could reduce its reliance on NVIDIA-based systems. Trainium, alongside Google's custom AI accelerators, TPUs, is positioned as the most credible alternative to NVIDIA's GPUs, which have long dominated the AI hardware ecosystem. Google has disclosed that it trained and deployed its Gemini family of models, including Gemini 3 Pro, on TPU clusters. Google is also supplying TPUs to Anthropic, which has announced plans to deploy up to one million TPU systems to support workloads for its Claude models. Amazon, which is also one of Anthropic's major investors, has enabled several of its Claude models to be trained on Trainium hardware.

OpenAI in talks to raise at least $10 billion from Amazon and use its AI chips - The Economic Times

OpenAI is reportedly in early talks with Amazon to raise $10 billion and may adopt its Trainium AI chips. The deal could value OpenAI above $500 billion and boost Amazon's bid to compete with Nvidia in AI hardware. Negotiations are preliminary, but the move highlights growing investment and competition in the AI sector.OpenAI is in initial discussions to raise at least $10 billion from Amazon and use its chips, a potential win for the online retailer's effort to broaden its AI industry presence and compete with Nvidia Corp. The deal under discussion could value OpenAI north of $500 billion and see it adopt Amazon's Trainium chip, a person with knowledge of the matter said, asking to remain anonymous to describe private negotiations. Talks, however, are at a preliminary stage and terms could change, the person added. A deal would mark a win for Amazon's fledgling semiconductor division. While Nvidia dominates the market for the powerful chips required to create AI platforms, developers such as Meta Platforms Inc. are starting to explore rival offerings from the likes of Alphabet Inc.'s Google. The Trainium chip is a key element of Amazon's strategy to stand out in AI, complementing its cloud division. Amazon Web Services is the largest seller of rented computing power and data storage, but it has struggled to replicate that dominance among AI developers given intense competition from the likes of Microsoft Corp., one of OpenAI's largest backers. Amazon hopes to entice companies looking for a bargain. Trainium chips are capable of powering the intensive calculations behind AI models more cheaply and efficiently than Nvidia's market-leading graphics processing units, according to the company. The negotiations between OpenAI and Amazon began around October after the ChatGPT creator completed a corporate overhaul, the Information reported earlier. Microsoft took a 27% ownership stake as part of a restructuring plan that took nearly a year to negotiate. Representatives for OpenAI and Amazon declined to comment. OpenAI was last valued at $500 billion in an employee share sale, briefly propelling the ChatGPT owner past Elon Musk's SpaceX to become the world's largest startup. That rapid rise underscores the investment frenzy surrounding the leaders of a technology with the potential to transform industries and economies. In recent months, Wall Street analysts have warned of a potential bubble forming, in part because of the circular nature of some of those investment deals -- where companies invest heavily in potential customers to keep up spending on their own products. OpenAI and Amazon last month announced a deal in which AWS will supply the startup $38 billion of cloud computing power over seven years. That announcement centreed on hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips.

Sam Altman's OpenAI In Talks To Raise $10 Billion From Amazon And Use Its AI Chips: Report - Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Sam Altman-led OpenAI is reportedly in talks with Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) about a potential investment that could exceed $10 billion and a deal to use its artificial intelligence (AI) chips. The news was first reported by The Information on Tuesday and later by several news outlets, including CNBC and Reuters. OpenAI and Amazon did not immediately respond to Benzinga's requests for comment. OpenAI Diversifies Deals As AI Race Heats Up The move follows OpenAI's recent restructuring and its expanded capability to partner with other companies beyond its existing relationship with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). The potential partnership with Amazon also comes on the heels of its $38 billion capacity purchase agreement with the e-commerce giant's cloud unit Amazon Web Services (AWS). Meanwhile, Amazon has also shown significant interest in the AI sector, having invested over $8 billion in Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI. AWS's development of AI chips since 2015 has placed it at a strategic advantage, offering crucial hardware solutions for AI companies aiming to scale their models. Earlier this month, CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon's AI chip Trainium2, is already "a multi-billion-dollar revenue run-rate business" with over a million chips in production and over 100,000 companies using it primarily. See also: Google Unveils Gemini Deep Research The Same Day As OpenAI's GPT-5.2 Launch, Intensifying AI Face-Off OpenAI's Valuation Surge OpenAI's recent $6.6 billion secondary share sale, valuing the company at $500 billion, highlights its growing market presence and financial muscle. The company's infrastructure commitments have also exceeded $1.4 trillion. The ChatGPT owner's ability to attract substantial funding from industry giants like Microsoft and potentially Amazon underscores its pivotal role in the AI ecosystem. Still, rivals like Alphabet's Google have posed stiff competition for OpenAI's models, with Google's Gemini series gaining traction and reportedly pushing OpenAI into "code red" mode to accelerate improvements. READ NEXT: Microsoft, Nvidia-Backed French AI Startup Is Coming For OpenAI And Google With Its Latest Launch Image via Shutterstock AMZNAmazon.com Inc$222.13-0.19%OverviewMSFTMicrosoft Corp$474.54-0.39%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Amazon in talks to invest $10bn in OpenAI

Amazon is in discussions to invest more than $10 billion in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, in a deal that could value the AI firm at over $500 billion, according to The Information, a tech news site that revealed the negotiations. The potential investment would help OpenAI fund the massive cost of running and expanding its artificial intelligence systems, which rely on vast data centres and powerful computer chips. OpenAI has already committed to spending $38 billion over seven years on cloud capacity from Amazon Web Services, the world's largest data centre provider. If completed, the deal could form part of a wider fundraising round involving other investors. OpenAI's long-term spending on computing power is estimated at $1.4 trillion over the next eight years, far exceeding its current revenues, making fresh funding essential. OpenAI, which recently converted its core business into a for-profit company, is also weighing a future stock market listing that could eventually value it at up to $1 trillion.

NVIDIA's AI Chips Might Have a New "Challenger" Onboard, and No, It's Not Google; OpenAI Plans to Deploy Amazon's Trainium ASIC in a Mega-Deal

ASICs are mounting up the pressure on NVIDIA's AI chips, as, according to a new report, Amazon is looking to sign a multi-billion-dollar deal with OpenAI involving Trainium chips. There's no doubt that the AI world is in dire need of capital to fuel its advancements, and apart from all tech giants looking for financing, OpenAI is one of the most proactive entities out there, securing deals with almost every major player. According to a report by The Information, Amazon is reportedly planning to invest $10 billion in OpenAI. The deal could involve OpenAI utilizing Amazon's Trainium chip, marking one of the largest external deployments of the ASIC to date. Amazon's investment is said to give OpenAI a boost in financing rounds, marking a win for both companies involved. For those unaware, Amazon's Trainium ASICs are likely one of the most competitive options available, alongside Google's TPUs, and they are now entering their fourth iteration, called Trainium4. The company recently announced plans to scale up its Trainium3 architecture into a rack-scale configuration, indicating that Amazon intends to expand its ASIC portfolio significantly. OpenAI's adoption of Amazon's Trainium would enable the giant to strengthen its position in the external market, and for OpenAI, this means gaining support from a major AI giant in its pre-IPO phase. Of course, ASICs are seen as an attractive option in the inference phase of AI, given their optimized TCO figures, but more importantly, they are being internally deployed on a much larger scale by the likes of Google and Amazon, given the need for computing power. We recently discussed how Google has significantly increased orders for its TPU chips at MediaTek and Broadcom, and it appears that tech giants view custom AI chips as a means to reduce their reliance on NVIDIA. OpenAI now has the support of Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, Amazon, and many others as the AI giants prepare to become a public company, and reports suggest that Sam Altman's startup is now preparing for a trillion-dollar IPO.

Amazon Eyes $10 Billion Investment and Chip Deal in OpenAI | PYMNTS.com

That investment could value the artificial intelligence startup at upwards of $500 billion, Reuters reported late Tuesday (Dec. 16), citing a source familiar with the matter. That source said the talks between the companies are "very fluid." Reuters added that its report followed an earlier one from The Information, which said Amazon aims to use Amazon's Trainium chips, which compete with Nvidia and Google's chips, and that this funding could open the door to a larger round with other investors. OpenAI is also hoping to sell an enterprise version of ChatGPT to Amazon, but it is not clear if the deal includes provisions for integrating ChatGPT into functions like shopping features that Amazon is developing for its apps, the report said. PYMNTS has contacted both companies for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. As the Reuters report notes, the talks come at a time when OpenAI is setting the foundation for an initial public offering (IPO) that could value the company at up to $1 trillion. The source told Reuters the approach highlights OpenAI's ability to widen its base of potential partners after shifting away from its non-profit origins and settling its deal with Microsoft. That arrangement makes OpenAI a public benefit corporation controlled by a non-profit with a stake in the company's success, making it easier for its to secure funds for computing resources. In addition, the agreement gives Microsoft exclusive intellectual-property rights to OpenAI tech until 2032. At the same time, the deal frees Microsoft to independently pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI) by itself or with third parties. (AGI is a term for a type of AI that can perform at or above the level of humans.) In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week about enterprises' embrace of AI pilots in 2025. It was a year in which these companies reported "meaningful gains" from these tools, the report said. However, fragmented deployments soon ran into rising costs, gaps in governance and operational complexity after adoption moved beyond smaller teams. "After two years of rapid experimentation, companies are consolidating disconnected tools into unified AI platforms designed to support core workflows, control inference spending and operate reliably across the organization," PYMNTS wrote. "The shift marks a turning point in enterprise AI adoption, moving the technology from isolated productivity gains toward infrastructure that must run continuously and at scale."

OpenAI and Amazon in talks for $10 billion+ investment, signaling AI arms race escalates beyond Azure

OpenAI, the architect of the generative AI revolution, is reportedly in talks with Amazon for an investment that could exceed $10 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter. This potential deal marks the latest escalation in the intense technological and financial arms race defining the AI industry, following similar large-scale, often "circular" funding arrangements like Microsoft's multi-billion-dollar commitment to OpenAI. The term "circular deal" refers to investments where the capital often comes with substantial provisions for the AI company to spend a significant portion of that funding on the investor's cloud infrastructure. Microsoft's deep ties to OpenAI, cemented by investments and its utilization of Azure, have become the standard model for powering hyperscale AI operations. An investment of this magnitude from Amazon would be a strategic maneuver to counter Microsoft's current dominance and potentially direct a massive, guaranteed workload toward Amazon Web Services (AWS). OpenAI, which requires immense computational power for training and deploying its large language models, needs cloud resources at a scale few companies can provide. For AWS, securing OpenAI as a core customer would be a monumental win, giving it a high-profile validation in the generative AI space and challenging Microsoft Azure's established relationship. The deal would likely include provisions for OpenAI to use AWS for a substantial portion of its future compute needs, effectively turning the investment into a guaranteed revenue stream for Amazon's cloud business. This high-stakes negotiation underscores two critical industry dynamics: The Demand for Compute: The capital required to fuel the AI industry's growth is no longer just for hiring talent; it is predominantly for securing access to vast GPU clusters and specialized cloud infrastructure. The Strategic Cloud War: Hyperscalers like Amazon and Microsoft view these multi-billion-dollar investments as a necessary cost to lock in the world's most advanced AI companies, ensuring their cloud platforms become the de facto operating system for the AI economy. The potential $10 billion+ transaction thus represents not just a cash injection for OpenAI, but a massive strategic alignment that will further reshape the competitive landscape between the world's leading cloud providers.