Key Takeaways
- OpenAI signs $38 billion AWS deal for AI compute capacity
- Partnership reduces OpenAI’s exclusive reliance on Microsoft
- Deployment begins immediately with full capacity expected by end of 2025
OpenAI has secured a massive $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services, marking a significant shift in its cloud computing strategy. The deal enables OpenAI to immediately run AI workloads on AWS infrastructure using hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs in US data centers.
This strategic partnership represents OpenAI’s continued diversification beyond its long-standing exclusive relationship with Microsoft, which had invested $13 billion in the AI company since 2019.
CEO Perspectives on the Partnership
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized the critical importance of this collaboration for advancing AI capabilities.
“Scaling frontier AI requires massive, reliable compute. Our partnership with AWS strengthens the broad compute ecosystem that will power this next era and bring advanced AI to everyone,” Altman said.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy confirmed that OpenAI will train its AI models on AWS infrastructure, including ChatGPT inference, training, and agentic AI workloads.
“New multi-year, strategic partnership with @OpenAI will provide our industry-leading infrastructure for them to run and scale ChatGPT inference, training, and agentic AI workloads,” Jassy said.
“Allows OpenAI to leverage our unusual experience running large-scale AI infrastructure securely, reliably, and at scale. OpenAI will start using AWS’s infrastructure immediately and we expect to have all of the capacity deployed before end of next year– with the ability to expand in 2027 and beyond,” he added.
Reduced Dependence on Microsoft
The AWS deal follows Microsoft’s decision in January to end its exclusive cloud arrangement with OpenAI. While Microsoft retains right of first refusal for new OpenAI cloud requests, the company is actively diversifying its compute partnerships.
OpenAI has recently announced approximately $1.4 trillion in buildout agreements with multiple technology partners including , Broadcom, Oracle, and Google, signaling a broader strategy for securing AI computing resources.
