Amazon Eyes $10 Billion Investment and Chip Deal in OpenAI

Amazon is reportedly in discussions to invest around $10 billion in OpenAI.

That investment could value the artificial intelligence startup at upwards of $500 billion, Reuters reported late Tuesday (Dec. 16), citing a source familiar with the matter. That source said the talks between the companies are “very fluid.”

Reuters added that its report followed an earlier one from The Information, which said Amazon aims to use Amazon’s Trainium chips, which compete with Nvidia and Google’s chips, and that this funding could open the door to a larger round with other investors.

OpenAI is also hoping to sell an enterprise version of ChatGPT to Amazon, but it is not clear if the deal includes provisions for integrating ChatGPT into functions like shopping features that Amazon is developing for its apps, the report said.

PYMNTS has contacted both companies for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

As the Reuters report notes, the talks come at a time when OpenAI is setting the foundation for an initial public offering (IPO) that could value the company at up to $1 trillion.

The source told Reuters the approach highlights OpenAI’s ability to widen its base of potential partners after shifting away from its non-profit origins and settling its deal with Microsoft.

That arrangement makes OpenAI a public benefit corporation controlled by a non-profit with a stake in the company’s success, making it easier for its to secure funds for computing resources.

In addition, the agreement gives Microsoft exclusive intellectual-property rights to OpenAI tech until 2032. At the same time, the deal frees Microsoft to independently pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI) by itself or with third parties. (AGI is a term for a type of AI that can perform at or above the level of humans.)

In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week about enterprises’ embrace of AI pilots in 2025. It was a year in which these companies reported “meaningful gains” from these tools, the report said.

However, fragmented deployments soon ran into rising costs, gaps in governance and operational complexity after adoption moved beyond smaller teams.

“After two years of rapid experimentation, companies are consolidating disconnected tools into unified AI platforms designed to support core workflows, control inference spending and operate reliably across the organization,” PYMNTS wrote. “The shift marks a turning point in enterprise AI adoption, moving the technology from isolated productivity gains toward infrastructure that must run continuously and at scale.”