Amazon in talks to invest up to $50bn in OpenAI - report

(Sharecast News) - Amazon.com is reportedly in talks to invest up to $50bn in OpenAI, in what would be a giant bet on the AI startup. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that OpenAI was seeking up to $100bn in new capital from investors, a round that could value it at as much as $830bn.

According to the WSJ, citing people familiar with the matter, SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $30bn more in OpenAI as part of the round, adding to the Japanese conglomerate's already large stake in the startup.

It was understood that Amazon's chief executive, Andy Jassy, is leading the negotiations with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The exact shape of a deal, should one be reached, could still change, sources told the WSJ.

Investing up to $50bn could make Amazon the biggest contributor to the AI company's ongoing fundraising round. Amazon has also put money into OpenAI competitor Anthropic. The company has developed an $11bn data centre campus for the large language model developer in Indiana.

Amazon has been investing heavily in AI infrastructure while also cutting costs internally. On Wednesday, it said it would cut around 16,000 corporate employees, having already announced 14,000 job cuts in October.