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Amazon is in talks to invest more than $10bn in OpenAI and sell it more chips and computing power, in the latest investment deal tying the AI start-up to its infrastructure providers.
Amazon is discussing an agreement that would push OpenAI’s valuation above $500bn, according to people familiar with the matter.
Any deal is expected to include OpenAI using Amazon’s Trainium series of AI chips and renting more data centre capacity to run its models and tools such as ChatGPT, the people said.
The talks, first reported by the Information, remain at an early stage, the people added.
The proposed deal comes as the start-up uncouples from its early backer Microsoft. The two companies restructured their relationship in late October, allowing OpenAI to agree data centre deals with rival cloud providers.
The start-up signed a deal with Amazon a few days after the agreement with Microsoft was reached, committing to spend $38bn renting servers over seven years.
The investment and cloud deal under discussion would come on top of that agreement.
OpenAI has already locked in $1.5tn in long-term deals with Nvidia, Oracle, AMD and Broadcom to supply chips and other computing infrastructure.
The dealmaking spree has raised alarm among some investors who are concerned about the circular structure of many of these agreements. OpenAI has taken shares in some of its infrastructure suppliers, and received big investments from others.
Tech executives including OpenAI’s chief Sam Altman have ploughed ahead with dealmaking, pointing to the huge potential pay-off from the growing use of large language models.
OpenAI is not alone in locking in deals with suppliers. Rival model builder Anthropic has secured some $26bn in total from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia while using their hardware and services.
Amazon is one of Anthropic’s largest backers having committed some $8bn to the company since 2023.
The deal between Amazon and OpenAI will not enable Amazon to sell the start-up’s most advanced closed-weight models on Amazon’s developer platform. Microsoft retains exclusive rights until the early 2030s.
The deal also marks another step in OpenAI’s efforts to diversify the chips used to train and run its models.
Nvidia, the dominant chipmaker, has committed to invest up to $100bn in OpenAI in a multiyear deal that also involves the start-up purchasing millions of its AI processors.
But OpenAI has also struck chips deals with Broadcom and AMD, which agreed to sell OpenAI as much as 10 per cent of its stock.
The deal with OpenAI would be a coup for Amazon’s growing chips unit, whose technology is already used to train Anthropic’s leading models. Google’s chips, known as Tensor Processing Units, are also used by Anthropic and the search giant’s own Gemini model.
Amazon and OpenAI are also discussing a commercial tie-up involving the company’s online marketplace. The start-up is seeking to make headway in the ecommerce space and already has deals with Etsy, Shopify and Instacart as it tries to cultivate new revenue streams in ecommerce.
OpenAI declined to comment. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.
