Amazon is in preliminary talks to invest at least US$10 billion in OpenAI and provide its Trainium chips, people familiar with the discussions told Bloomberg.
The talks remain at an early stage and could value the ChatGPT developer at more than US$500 billion.
As part of the discussions, OpenAI would consider using Amazon’s in-house Trainium processors, which are designed to train large artificial intelligence models.
The structure and timing of any deal could still change.
A transaction would support Amazon’s push into AI hardware, a market dominated by Nvidia.
Nvidia’s graphics processors remain the industry standard, but large technology companies are increasingly testing alternative chips as demand for computing power grows.
Trainium is central to Amazon’s strategy to differentiate its AI offering within its cloud business.
The company has promoted the processors as a more cost-efficient option for training AI models.
Broader adoption would also strengthen Amazon’s semiconductor unit.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is facing rising competition for AI workloads from rivals including Microsoft, a major OpenAI backer.
The talks began around October after OpenAI completed a corporate restructuring, Bloomberg previously reported.
As part of that process, Microsoft secured an estimated 27 percent economic stake following negotiations that lasted nearly a year.
OpenAI was most recently valued at about US$500 billion in an employee share sale, briefly overtaking SpaceX as the world’s most valuable startup.
The rise reflects strong investor interest in generative AI, even as some analysts warn investment levels may be running ahead of sustainable demand.
Amazon and OpenAI already have a significant commercial relationship.
In November, the companies said AWS would provide up to US$38 billion in cloud computing capacity over seven years.
Early deployments are focused on Nvidia-based infrastructure rather than Amazon’s own chips.
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