OpenAI in talks with Amazon about investment that could exceed $10 billion
AmazonAmazon(US:AMZN) CNBC·2025-12-17 04:42

Core Insights - OpenAI is in discussions with Amazon for a potential investment exceeding $10 billion, which would involve the use of Amazon's AI chips [2] - The talks follow OpenAI's restructuring in October and its partnership with Microsoft, allowing more freedom to raise capital and collaborate with other companies in the AI sector [2][3] - Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019 but no longer has a first refusal right for being OpenAI's compute provider, enabling OpenAI to work with third parties [3] Investment Landscape - Amazon has previously invested at least $8 billion in AI rival Anthropic and is looking to increase its presence in the generative AI market [4] - Microsoft announced a plan to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic, while Nvidia is set to invest up to $10 billion in the same startup [4] AI Infrastructure Development - Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been developing its own AI chips since 2015, with its Inferentia and Trainium chips becoming essential for AI companies [5] - OpenAI has made over $1.4 trillion in infrastructure commitments recently, including a $38 billion capacity purchase from AWS, marking its first contract with a leading cloud infrastructure provider [6] - OpenAI also completed a secondary share sale totaling $6.6 billion, allowing employees to sell stock at a valuation of $500 billion [6]