OpenAI and AWS have reached a $38 billion cloud collaboration deal, paving the way to break free from Microsoft and prepare for an IPO.

OpenAI announced a collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) worth up to $38 billion, allowing the use of its Nvidia GPUs for large-scale AI computing. This not only symbolizes OpenAI's gradual move away from dependency on Microsoft but also gives Amazon a lead in the competition for generative AI cloud infrastructure. The news was immediately reflected in its stock price, with $AMZN hitting an all-time high.

OpenAI Joins Forces with AWS: The Alliance of Two Giants Boosts Amazon's Stock Price to New Heights

OpenAI announced a collaboration with AWS to procure $38 billion worth of cloud computing resources. This protocol will allow OpenAI to use hundreds of thousands of high-end Nvidia GPUs owned by AWS in the United States, including Blackwell chips, and other chip architectures will be added in the future.

AWS Vice President Dave Brown stated, “This is a brand new and independent computing capacity, some of which has been activated and is available for OpenAI's use.”

It is reported that OpenAI will use AWS infrastructure for ChatGPT inference and next-generation model training.

As soon as the news broke, Amazon's stock price rose 4% in a single day, reaching a historical high. Over the past two trading days, it has increased a total of 14%, marking the largest gain since November 2022.

Breaking away from Microsoft's exclusive partnership, OpenAI ushers in the “multi-cloud collaboration era”.

Since 2019, Microsoft has been OpenAI's exclusive cloud partner, with a total investment amount reaching 13 billion dollars. However, starting this year, the two parties have shifted to a non-exclusive partnership, and Microsoft's priority officially expired last week.

Nowadays, OpenAI frequently collaborates with Nvidia (, Broadcom ), Google Cloud, Oracle, and AMD. It is not difficult to see the company's strategy for deploying multi-cloud computing facilities, attempting to break free from single dependency both technologically and commercially, paving the way for long-term independent operation and an eventual public listing.

The competition for computing power has intensified, raising concerns about an AI bubble.

However, OpenAI has signed contracts for computing power and hardware totaling more than $1.4 trillion in recent months, raising concerns that AI capital expenditures may be overheating, and even leading to fears of a bubble.

Major players including Meta and Microsoft revealed substantial AI capital expenditures in their earnings reports last week, raising concerns among investors about the difficulty of translating these investments into profits in the short term, resulting in both companies' stock prices plummeting by 3% to 11%.

(OpenAI's valuation has soared to $500 billion, renowned investor James Anderson is concerned about the AI bubble)

Prelude to IPO: OpenAI strives for a 2027 listing

Some people believe that this AWS contract is not only a business collaboration but also an important signal that OpenAI is preparing to go public.

CEO Sam Altman stated: “To drive cutting-edge AI, we need a massive and stable computing infrastructure. Our partnership with AWS will support the next era of AI.”

OpenAI's CFO Sarah Friar also pointed out that the company's recent restructuring is preparing for an IPO. Through multi-cloud deployment and long-term resource locking, OpenAI is demonstrating mature financial and operational governance.

(OpenAI will go public with a valuation of one trillion dollars, making it the largest IPO in history)

It is not difficult to see that the competition among AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud in the future will revolve around computing power, performance, and energy efficiency, while OpenAI's “cloud decentralization” strategy may be the key piece in its journey to becoming a global AI giant.

This article about OpenAI and AWS reaching a $38 billion cloud collaboration deal, paving the way to break free from Microsoft and for an IPO, first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.