Amazon is negotiating a potential investment of up to $50 billion in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, marking one of the largest private technology financings in history. The discussions between Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman remain ongoing and have not reached a final agreement, with details still subject to change.
The talks come as OpenAI pursues an ambitious fundraising effort that could total $100 billion from multiple investors. If successful, this funding round would elevate OpenAI’s valuation to approximately $830 billion, a significant jump from its current $500 billion valuation achieved through a secondary share sale in October. Amazon could potentially contribute up to half of the total funding round, though the final investment amount has not been determined.
OpenAI’s Massive Funding Push
OpenAI is simultaneously holding discussions with several other major technology companies and financial institutions about participating in the funding round. Nvidia and SoftBank are also in talks to join the investment, with SoftBank reportedly considering a $30 billion commitment. The funding round is expected to be executed in two phases, beginning with investments from strategic partners including Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia, followed by additional capital from other participants.
CEO Sam Altman has been actively pursuing capital from various sources to support the company’s growing infrastructure needs. Last week, Altman traveled to the United Arab Emirates to meet with sovereign wealth funds, according to reports. These extensive fundraising efforts reflect the substantial costs associated with developing advanced AI systems and the massive cloud computing infrastructure required to support them.
A term sheet for Amazon’s investment could be finalized within the coming weeks, though a spokesperson for Amazon declined to comment on the negotiations. The funding deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2026.
Amazon’s Growing AI Portfolio
The potential OpenAI investment represents a notable development in Amazon’s AI strategy, particularly because the company has already committed billions of dollars to Anthropic, a direct competitor of OpenAI. Amazon has invested at least $8 billion in Anthropic since 2023, with Amazon Web Services serving as the company’s primary cloud provider and training partner.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives and researchers, including CEO Dario Amodei, and is known for its Claude AI model family. Earlier this month, Anthropic completed a multibillion-dollar funding round that achieved a valuation of $350 billion. Amazon recently opened an $11 billion data center campus in Indiana specifically designed to run Anthropic models.
Despite its close relationship with Anthropic, Amazon has been exploring a partnership with OpenAI since last year. The discussions have included potential arrangements for OpenAI to utilize Amazon’s custom AI chips as part of a broader investment deal. Additionally, OpenAI is considering a separate agreement that would allow Amazon to implement OpenAI’s AI models across its products and services, while also providing access to these models for Amazon employees.
Expanding Cloud Infrastructure Partnerships
Amazon and OpenAI already have an existing business relationship through a major cloud computing deal. In November 2025, OpenAI signed a $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services to access computing infrastructure over the next seven years. The deal provides OpenAI with immediate access to hundreds of thousands of Nvidia graphics processing units located in AWS data centers across the United States, with plans to expand capacity in the future.
This AWS partnership represented a significant shift for OpenAI, which had previously relied heavily on Microsoft for cloud infrastructure. Microsoft’s preferential status under commercial terms with OpenAI expired in late 2025, enabling OpenAI to establish broader partnerships with other major cloud providers. OpenAI has also entered into cloud agreements with Oracle and Google, though AWS remains the dominant player in the cloud computing market.
The infrastructure provided through the AWS deal supports both inference operations that power ChatGPT’s real-time responses and the training of next-generation AI models. Dave Brown, vice president of compute and networking services at AWS, confirmed that OpenAI is now a direct AWS customer, with the company billing OpenAI for the computing capacity it consumes.
OpenAI’s Journey to Tech Giant Status
OpenAI was established as a nonprofit research organization in 2015 with a mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. The company captured widespread public attention in 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT, a conversational AI chatbot that demonstrated impressive language understanding and generation capabilities.
Since then, OpenAI has transformed into one of the world’s most valuable private technology companies. The organization evolved from its nonprofit roots to become a commercial enterprise, attracting massive investments from technology giants and venture capital firms. The company’s rapid growth has been fueled by strong demand for its AI models and applications across various industries.
The substantial capital requirements for training and deploying advanced AI systems have become a defining characteristic of the industry. OpenAI’s pursuit of $100 billion in new funding underscores the enormous computational resources and infrastructure investments needed to remain competitive in the race to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence capabilities. The involvement of multiple cloud providers and chip manufacturers in the funding discussions reflects the interconnected nature of AI development, where model creators depend on partnerships with infrastructure and hardware companies to scale their operations.
