OpenAI Secures $38 Billion Cloud Partnership with AWS for AI Expansion

OpenAI has entered into a seven-year, $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to access AWS's extensive cloud infrastructure, including hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs, to support the training and deployment of its artificial intelligence models, such as ChatGPT. OpenAI will begin utilizing AWS's computing resources immediately, with plans to fully deploy the agreed capacity by the end of 2026 and potential expansion into 2027 and beyond.

This partnership follows OpenAI's recent restructuring, which ended its exclusive cloud computing arrangement with Microsoft, allowing the company to diversify its cloud service providers. The agreement underscores the growing demand for substantial computing power in AI development and signifies AWS's commitment to strengthening its position in the AI and cloud computing sectors.

Founded in 2015, OpenAI has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence research, developing models such as ChatGPT. In October 2025, OpenAI restructured into a public benefit corporation, OpenAI Group PBC, overseen by the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation. This restructuring aimed to provide more operational freedom and facilitate capital raising. Microsoft retains a 27% ownership stake in OpenAI PBC, reflecting a nearly tenfold return on its $13.8 billion investment and valuing the company at approximately $500 billion.

AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon.com Inc., is a leading cloud computing platform offering a wide range of services, including computing power, storage, and databases. AWS provides scalable and reliable infrastructure to businesses and organizations worldwide, supporting various applications, including artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads.

Under the terms of the partnership, OpenAI will have immediate and increasing access to AWS's world-class infrastructure, including Amazon EC2 UltraServers featuring hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs, specifically the GB200 and GB300 models. The partnership also allows OpenAI to scale to tens of millions of CPUs for its advanced generative AI workloads.

OpenAI will start utilizing AWS compute resources immediately, with plans to deploy all the agreed capacity before the end of 2026 and the ability to expand further into 2027 and beyond.

The partnership represents a $38 billion commitment over seven years, enabling OpenAI to rapidly expand its compute capacity while benefiting from the price, performance, scale, and security of AWS.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, stated, "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."

Matt Garman, CEO of AWS, commented, "The breadth and immediate availability of optimized compute demonstrates why AWS is uniquely positioned to support OpenAI's vast AI workloads."

This partnership follows OpenAI's recent restructuring, which ended its exclusive cloud computing arrangement with Microsoft. The new agreement with AWS allows OpenAI to diversify its cloud service providers, reducing dependency on a single provider and enhancing operational flexibility.

The deal underscores the growing demand for substantial computing power in AI development. Access to AWS's extensive infrastructure will support OpenAI's efforts in training and deploying advanced AI models, potentially accelerating the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Following the announcement, Amazon's stock surged, reflecting investor enthusiasm about the new alliance. This partnership reinforces confidence in AWS's competitiveness amid concerns over rivals like Microsoft and Google.

The $38 billion partnership between OpenAI and AWS marks a significant milestone in the AI and cloud computing sectors. It highlights the critical role of substantial computing power in advancing AI technologies and reflects the strategic moves by AI companies to diversify their infrastructure partnerships. This development is poised to have far-reaching implications for the future of AI development and the competitive dynamics among cloud service providers.