OpenAI is seeking fresh capital on an unprecedented scale, and Amazon may be poised to play a major role. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Amazon is in discussions to invest at least $50 billion in OpenAI as part of a broader fundraising effort that could total around $100 billion.
If completed, the round would significantly boost OpenAI’s valuation, potentially lifting it from roughly $500 billion to as much as $830 billion. While details remain limited, the Journal reports that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is personally leading the talks with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Both companies declined to comment when contacted by TechCrunch.
OpenAI’s fundraising push extends beyond Amazon. The company has reportedly been in conversations with sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, and The New York Times has reported additional discussions involving Nvidia, Microsoft, and SoftBank. SoftBank, in particular, is said to be considering an investment of up to $30 billion. The round could be structured in phases, beginning with strategic partners such as Microsoft and Nvidia, and is expected to close by the end of the first quarter.
A potential Amazon–OpenAI partnership would stand out given Amazon’s deep financial and operational ties to Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s main rivals. Amazon has invested at least $8 billion in Anthropic, and AWS serves as the startup’s primary cloud infrastructure and training partner. More recently, Amazon announced the opening of an $11 billion data center campus in Indiana dedicated exclusively to running Anthropic models.
The reported talks underscore how competition among Big Tech players is intensifying as capital requirements for frontier AI systems continue to escalate. Whether Amazon ultimately commits to OpenAI—and how such a move would coexist with its Anthropic relationship—remains an open question as negotiations continue.
