OpenAI has signed a landmark $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services to purchase cloud capacity, marking its first major deal with the cloud leader and a clear move away from exclusive reliance on Microsoft.
Under the multiyear partnership, OpenAI will immediately begin running workloads on AWS infrastructure, accessing hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs in the U.S., with expansion plans in place. Amazon's stock rose 5 percent following the announcement.
Through the agreement, AWS will construct more OpenAI infrastructure, enabling real-time inference for programs like ChatGPT as well as AI training. The collaboration will power this aspect next era of cutting-edge AI development, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
This is OpenAI's biggest deal outside of Microsoft, which has contributed $13 billion to the AI startup since 2019. OpenAI is free to work with other providers now that Microsoft's exclusive cloud rights have expired, and it has already signed cloud agreements with Google and Oracle.
The deal strengthens AWS's reputation in the AI space and coincides with Amazon increasing its investments in Anthropic, another AI startup. The action demonstrates OpenAI's attempts to broaden its cloud alliances in anticipation of a possible IPO.
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May 15, 2026 15:25 ET Apart from the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, the main news on the economics front this week included key price data from the U.S. and the first quarter economic growth figures from major economies. Both consumer prices and producer costs have started to reflect the effect of supply shocks due to the Middle East conflict. In Europe, GDP data was in focus, while inflation data from China dominated the news flow in Asia.