OpenAI may be about to add a new heavyweight partner to its already crowded cap table.
According to Bloomberg, the ChatGPT maker is in early discussions with Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 0.58% ) to raise at least $10 billion in fresh funding while adopting Amazon’s in-house Trainium AI chips. If the deal comes together, it could value OpenAI north of $500 billion and mark a major strategic win for Amazon’s push to compete with Nvidia $NVDA ( ▼ 3.82% ) in AI hardware.
Nothing is final yet. Talks are still preliminary and terms could change. But even the outline is enough to get Silicon Valley’s attention.
Amazon’s chip moment
For Amazon, this would be a breakthrough moment for its semiconductor ambitions. Nvidia still dominates AI compute, but hyperscalers are increasingly trying to loosen that grip by pushing their own silicon. Amazon’s Trainium chips are designed to handle AI workloads at a lower cost than Nvidia’s GPUs, at least according to Amazon.
The pitch is straightforward: cheaper compute, tighter integration with AWS, and less dependence on a single chip supplier. Developers including Meta $META ( ▼ 1.16% ) and Alphabet $GOOGL ( ▼ 3.21% ) have already begun experimenting with non-Nvidia alternatives, and landing OpenAI would instantly legitimize Trainium as a serious contender.
AWS is still the world’s largest cloud provider, but Microsoft $MSFT has gained the upper hand with AI developers thanks to its deep ties to OpenAI. This move would help Amazon close that gap.
OpenAI diversifies its power base
For OpenAI, the talks signal something just as important: diversification. The company recently completed a major corporate restructuring that left Microsoft with a roughly 27 percent stake, but it has been clear it does not want to rely on a single backer or a single compute partner.
Last month, OpenAI and Amazon announced a separate deal under which AWS will supply $38 billion of cloud capacity over seven years, largely powered by Nvidia chips. Adding Trainium into the mix would give OpenAI leverage on pricing and flexibility as its compute needs keep exploding.
Big picture: this is less about one funding round and more about the next phase of the AI arms race. Capital, chips, and cloud power are converging, and OpenAI is making sure it has more than one giant standing behind it.