Amazon completes $50B investment in OpenAI, reshaping the AI and cloud power map

Amazon just wrote the biggest check in AI history. The company finalized its $50 billion investment in OpenAI on July 31, after the AI lab hit undisclosed performance milestones that unlocked the remaining $35 billion tranche of a deal first announced in February. How the deal came together The structure was straightforward, at least by mega-deal standards. Amazon committed $15 billion upfront when the investment was announced on February 27. The remaining $35 billion was conditional, tied to OpenAI meeting specific milestones. Those milestones were met, and an SEC filing confirmed the full funding was released. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, speaking to CNBC around the time of the initial announcement, emphasized the long-term returns and “synergy” between Amazon’s cloud infrastructure and OpenAI’s AI capabilities. Amazon wasn’t alone at the table. The investment was part of a broader $110 billion funding round that included SoftBank and NVIDIA, each contributing $30 billion. OpenAI has committed to spending approximately $100 billion over the next eight years on Amazon Web Services, establishing AWS as the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI Frontier. Amazon invested $50 billion and secu...