Amazon Discusses Up to $50 Billion Investment in OpenAI Amid Ongoing Fundraising Round

Amazon is negotiating a potential investment of as much as $50 billion in OpenAI, according to a person familiar with the talks. The discussions, which involve direct conversations between Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, could lead to a signed term sheet within the next several weeks, the source said.

If completed, the transaction would represent one of the biggest single commitments ever made by a technology company to an artificial-intelligence developer. It would also signal a notable shift for Amazon, which has already allocated billions of dollars to Anthropic, a separate generative-AI startup founded by former OpenAI employees.

Talks Still Fluid

The negotiations remain subject to change, and the final amount could differ from the $50 billion figure currently under discussion. Amazon declined to comment on the ongoing talks. The Wall Street Journal first reported the potential size of the investment.

OpenAI is simultaneously holding discussions with multiple investors. The overall fundraising round could reach roughly $100 billion, the person familiar with the matter said. Altman traveled to the United Arab Emirates last week to meet with sovereign-wealth funds as part of that broader effort.

Current plans call for the capital raise to close in two tranches. The first portion would come from so-called strategic investors—including Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia—followed by contributions from financial backers such as SoftBank. SoftBank is weighing an investment that could approach $30 billion, according to the same source.

Background on OpenAI

Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research laboratory, OpenAI shifted to a capped-profit structure before its commercial products attracted mainstream attention. The launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 propelled the organization to global prominence and sparked a surge of corporate spending on generative-AI tools. A secondary share sale completed in October 2025 valued OpenAI at about $500 billion.

In addition to fresh equity, the pending arrangement with Amazon may include agreements for OpenAI to purchase Amazon’s in-house AI chips or to expand its use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, though the specific terms have not been finalized.

Amazon’s Existing Bet on Anthropic

Amazon’s interest in OpenAI comes as the e-commerce and cloud-computing giant deepens its relationship with Anthropic. The San Francisco-based startup—established in 2021 by former OpenAI executives, including chief executive Dario Amodei—develops the Claude family of AI models. Earlier this month, Anthropic closed a multibillion-dollar funding round that assigned the company a valuation of roughly $350 billion.

AWS became Anthropic’s primary cloud provider in 2023 and its primary model-training partner in 2024, roles it continues to hold. Last October, Amazon opened an $11 billion data-center complex in Indiana, known as Project Rainier, dedicated in significant part to Anthropic’s computing needs.

Imagem: Internet

Capital Expenditures and Cost Controls

Pursuing large-scale AI investments has pushed Amazon to adjust spending elsewhere. On Wednesday, the company said it would eliminate about 16,000 corporate jobs in its second round of mass layoffs since October 2025. Amazon has also warned investors that capital expenditures could reach $125 billion in 2026, the highest projected outlay among the large U.S. technology firms at the time.

Much of that budget is earmarked for data centers and specialized chips required to train and run advanced AI systems. Industry analysts note that such infrastructure commitments are becoming a prerequisite for companies seeking to remain competitive in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Industry Context

Demand for generative-AI capabilities has prompted a wave of fundraising across the sector. Microsoft increased its own investment in OpenAI in early 2023, while Google, Meta and Oracle have each announced multibillion-dollar AI initiatives. Nvidia, whose graphics-processing units dominate AI training workloads, has also been cited as a potential participant in OpenAI’s current round.

The expected cash infusion would provide OpenAI with additional resources to expand data-center capacity, refine its GPT series of language models and develop new enterprise-focused offerings. Amazon, for its part, would gain a deeper stake in an AI leader even as it continues backing Anthropic, reflecting a broader strategy of diversifying bets across the field.

Regulators and policymakers are monitoring the surge in AI investment, assessing potential implications for competition, data privacy and labor markets. However, no regulatory obstacles have been publicly cited in connection with Amazon’s potential stake in OpenAI.

Next Steps

A definitive agreement could be reached before the end of the first quarter, but timing depends on the outcome of parallel negotiations with other investors. Should the deal proceed at the $50 billion level, it would rank among the largest private-company investments in recent memory and further underscore the escalating financial commitments surrounding generative AI.

Crédito da imagem: CNBC