OpenAI strikes $38 billion AI training deal with Amazon

OpenAI has struck a $38 billion deal with Amazon Web Services that will give the AI giant access to “hundreds of thousands” of Nvidia GPUs to power its AI models. The seven-year partnership comes as Microsoft continues to loosen its grip on OpenAI, dropping its status as its exclusive cloud provider and losing the first right of refusal to host its AI workloads.

OpenAI will “immediately” start using AWS compute to train its AI models, according to the press release, with “all capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026, and the ability to expand further into 2027 and beyond.”

Last week, OpenAI completed its for-profit restructuring and announced a new deal with Microsoft that will give the company the rights to OpenAI’s technology until it reaches advanced general intelligence (AGI). Under the agreement, OpenAI can work with third parties to develop some AI products and release certain open weight models.

The new deal also includes OpenAI’s commitment to purchase $250 billion of Microsoft’s Azure services, dwarfing the $38 billion it will pay Amazon. OpenAI also has a reported $300 billion contract with Oracle as well, while Amazon continues to pour billions of dollars into the AI startup Anthropic.