OpenAI and Amazon sign $38 billion deal for AI computing power

OpenAI and Amazon have signed a $38 billion (€33bn) deal that enables the ChatGPT maker to run its artificial intelligence systems on Amazon's data centres in the US.

As part of the deal, announced on Monday, OpenAI will be able to power its AI tools using “hundreds of thousands” of Nvidia’s specialised AI chips through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Amazon shares rose 4% following the announcement.

The agreement comes less than a week after OpenAI altered its partnership with longtime backer Microsoft, which until earlier this year had been the start-up’s exclusive cloud computing provider.

California and Delaware regulators also last week approved San Francisco-based OpenAI, originally founded as a non-profit, to move forward with plans to form a new business structure designed to raise capital more easily and operate for profit.

“The rapid advancement of AI technology has created unprecedented demand for computing power,” Amazon said in a statement on Monday. It added that OpenAI “will immediately start utilising AWS compute as part of this partnership, with all capacity expected to be deployed before the end of 2026, and the potential to expand further into 2027 and beyond.”

AI development requires enormous amounts of energy and computing capacity. OpenAI has long indicated that it needs more infrastructure both to develop new AI systems and to keep existing products, such as ChatGPT, running for its hundreds of millions of users.

The company has recently committed over $1 trillion (€870bn) to AI-related spending, including data centre projects with Oracle and SoftBank and semiconductor supply agreements with Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom.

Some of these deals have raised investor concerns about their “circular” nature, since OpenAI is not yet profitable and cannot currently pay for all the infrastructure its cloud partners provide, relying instead on expectations of future returns. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman dismissed these concerns last week, describing them as “breathless” speculation.

“Revenue is growing steeply. We are taking a forward bet that it’s going to continue to grow,” Altman said on a podcast appearance alongside Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Amazon is already the primary cloud provider for AI start-up Anthropic, a rival of OpenAI that is developing the Claude chatbot.