Cloud Wars: OpenAI Signs $38 Billion Computing Deal with AWS, Ending Microsoft Exclusivity

OpenAI has announced a multi-year cloud computing agreement with Amazon, valued at up to $38 billion, marking the first formal collaboration between the two companies and ending OpenAI’s exclusive arrangement with Microsoft.

Under the seven-year contract, AWS will provide the infrastructure to train new AI models and handle inference requests, with the full allocation of computing capacity expected to be available to OpenAI by the end of 2026 and access to large clusters of NVIDIA accelerators deployed within AWS data centres.

The deal helps AWS strengthen its position in the AI cloud race, even as it faces competition from Microsoft and Google, and comes as AWS reported a 20% year-on-year rise in cloud revenue on its latest earnings call. The agreement also notes OpenAI’s use of Amazon’s custom-designed CPUs, such as Graviton, to power emerging agentic AI services.

According to Microsoft’s recent financial disclosures, OpenAI’s net loss in the previous quarter may have reached $11.5 billion, though the article does not specify a timeframe for that figure.