Amazon has completed its full $50 billion investment commitment to OpenAI, receiving about a 5% stake in return. Based on that ownership level, OpenAI’s valuation works out to roughly $852 billion.
What stands out is that $35 billion of the commitment had originally been tied to conditions including an IPO or a technical breakthrough. Neither has happened, but Amazon still paid the balance early.
A revised Microsoft contract opened the way
One reason Amazon appears to have moved ahead was OpenAI’s renegotiated contract with Microsoft. Under the earlier arrangement, Microsoft had argued that it held near-exclusive control over OpenAI API hosting. That position was seen as a legal threat to any Amazon deal because even the Frontier platform would have had to pass through Azure before using another cloud provider. The Financial Times reported that Microsoft had internally discussed possible legal action.
That changed on April 27, when OpenAI and Microsoft signed a new agreement. The revised contract says the exclusive channel will expire in 2032. OpenAI also agreed to keep paying revenue sharing to Microsoft through 2030, with a cap on the total amount.
Once that restriction eased, Amazon moved quickly. An AWS agreement previously valued at $38 billion was expanded to $100 billion over eight years. Amazon also secured the role of exclusive external cloud provider for OpenAI’s Frontier platform. OpenAI agreed to use as much as 2 gigawatts of Trainium compute, covering current Trainium3 systems and the Trainium4 generation expected in 2027.
Amazon is backing both OpenAI and Anthropic
Amazon is not relying on OpenAI alone. It is also a core investor in Anthropic, where its total commitment can reach $33 billion. Of that amount, $18 billion has already been invested.
The report says Amazon invested $8 billion in staged funding from 2023 to 2025 under an existing commitment. On April 20 this year, it added another $5 billion in cash at a pre-money valuation of $350 billion. The remaining amount, up to $20 billion, is tied to commercial milestones.
In exchange, Anthropic agreed to spend more than $100 billion on AWS over 10 years and secured up to 5 gigawatts of computing capacity, with deployment scheduled through 2036.
Total commitments reach as much as $83 billion
Taken together, Amazon’s commitments to OpenAI and Anthropic reach as much as $83 billion, made up of $50 billion and $33 billion respectively. Actual money deployed so far totals $68 billion, combining $50 billion for OpenAI and $18 billion for Anthropic. The combined compute ceiling tied to the two agreements is 7 gigawatts, or 2 gigawatts plus 5 gigawatts.
The report notes that Amazon is supporting two competing frontier model labs at the same time, while placing its in-house Trainium chips inside both agreements.
How the $50 billion was paid
Regulatory filings submitted by Amazon to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show the OpenAI funding was paid in three stages. Amazon put in $15 billion when the financing round began in February, followed by $13.7 billion in the second quarter, then another $21.3 billion after the end of June. The three payments add up to the full $50 billion commitment.
OpenAI’s financing round also grew over time. When it launched in February, the company was valued at $730 billion and targeted $110 billion in fundraising. By the close on March 31, the round had expanded to $122 billion and the post-money valuation had climbed to $852 billion, or about NT$27.5 trillion.
The report added that OpenAI’s IPO filing timeline may slip to next year. Amazon, however, has already finished paying in full and locked in the related contract terms before any listing.