China Merchants Securities International: Microsoft and OpenAI update cooperation agreement, Amazon and Google receive positive news

Golden Finance reports that on April 29th, China Merchants Securities International issued a report stating that OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon are restructuring their partnership. Microsoft has terminated its exclusive rights to use OpenAI models and has adjusted the partnership to a non-exclusive agreement, valid until 2032. The collaboration mode has shifted from an indefinite partnership previously tied to AGI to a fixed-term cooperation. Overall, this adjustment marks a shift in the AI industry from “cloud platform lock-in” to a more open multi-cloud model, strengthening competition between cloud providers and large models, while also offering enterprise clients greater flexibility in combining models and infrastructure. Marginally, the bank believes this is more favorable for Amazon and Google’s cloud businesses, enabling them to access OpenAI models and reinforcing their multi-model, multi-partner neutral AI infrastructure strategy.
For Microsoft, the bank holds a more neutral and balanced view of this transaction. The negative factor is that losing exclusive cooperation with OpenAI weakens Azure’s differentiation advantage in AI, potentially dampening the marginal growth elasticity of its cloud business; positive factors include better financial terms, ongoing large-scale Azure resource consumption, and continued ownership of about 27% of OpenAI’s shares, participating in its long-term growth. Additionally, this arrangement opens up more potential financing channels for OpenAI, to some extent safeguarding Microsoft’s existing investment value in OpenAI. (Dongxin News Agency)