Amazon is reportedly in discussions to invest around $10 billion in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, in a potential deal that could value the AI leader at more than $500 billion. The talks come at a pivotal moment for OpenAI, which is also preparing for a possible public listing that could push its valuation as high as $1 trillion, according to Reuters. While negotiations are still ongoing and subject to change, the discussions signal OpenAI’s growing leverage and strategic flexibility as it deepens ties beyond its long-standing partnership with Microsoft.
The potential Amazon investment highlights how OpenAI has evolved from its non-profit origins into a central force in the global AI ecosystem. Recent restructuring of its commercial arrangements with Microsoft appears to have opened the door for broader partnerships with other technology giants. This shift has enabled OpenAI to explore capital and infrastructure support from multiple players, reflecting both its immense compute needs and its expanding commercial ambitions.
According to a report by The Information, OpenAI plans to use Amazon’s Trainium chips as part of the partnership. These chips are Amazon’s in-house alternative to processors from NVIDIA and Google and are designed to support large-scale AI training and inference workloads. In addition, OpenAI may offer an enterprise-focused version of ChatGPT to Amazon, potentially strengthening Amazon Web Services’ AI portfolio for business customers.
Microsoft, which currently owns a 27 percent stake in OpenAI, continues to play a dominant role in its commercialization strategy. Under existing arrangements, Microsoft has exclusive rights to sell OpenAI models to its cloud customers, making any new partnership with Amazon particularly noteworthy. The reported talks suggest that OpenAI is finding ways to work within—or potentially around—these constraints as it scales globally.
The proposed Amazon financing could also act as a catalyst for a larger fundraising round, potentially bringing in additional strategic and financial investors. However, key details remain unclear, including whether OpenAI’s technologies, such as ChatGPT, would be integrated into Amazon’s consumer-facing products, including its AI-powered shopping and recommendation tools.
If finalized, the investment would underscore the intensifying competition among cloud and AI infrastructure providers to align themselves with OpenAI’s technology. It would also reinforce the idea that OpenAI is emerging not just as a model developer, but as a platform company capable of shaping partnerships across the global technology landscape—well ahead of any eventual IPO.
