Amazon is in talks to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The negotiations come as OpenAI is seeking up to $100 billion in new funding, which could put its valuation at as much as $830 billion.
Leading the talks is Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who is negotiating with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. If the deal goes through, Amazon would be the largest investor in its current round. SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $30 billion more in OpenAI. It already sank $41 billion into the AI startup last December for an 11% stake.
OpenAI is also looking to raise capital from Middle East sovereign wealth funds and other VCs.
Amazon has an agreement to sell $38 billion in computing services to OpenAI over multiple years, a deal it struck last November. OpenAI has been diversifying its compute partner away from Microsoft, which was an early investor in the startup.
Amazon was an early backer of Anthropic, OpenAI’s rival. It invested $8 billion in Anthropic as of late 2024 and developed an $11 billion data center campus for the startup in Indiana, the paper said.
Amazon also said it would cut 16,000 corporate jobs, following a layoff of 14,000 last October. These two waves represent around 10% of its corporate workforce.