OpenAI Bets Big on AWS

What happened

OpenAI committed to a seven-year, $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for substantial computing power. This deal grants immediate access to Nvidia GPUs via AWS data centres, accelerating existing model inference and future AI generation training. This action diversifies OpenAI's cloud dependencies, reducing reliance on its existing $250 billion Microsoft Azure commitment, and allows for future integration of AWS's Trainium chips.

Why it matters

This multi-cloud strategy introduces a significant operational constraint by distributing critical AI workloads across disparate cloud environments. It increases the oversight burden for IT security, compliance, and platform operators, who must now manage security policies, data governance, and cost optimisation across two major providers. This shift also raises due diligence requirements for data residency and access controls, creating a potential policy mismatch with existing single-vendor frameworks.