"Double bet" AI overlord: abandoned exclusive love Anthropic transferred to OpenAI, trillion-dollar cloud market battle upgraded

According to reports, Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US) is in negotiations with OpenAI regarding investment matters, with a proposed investment of up to $50 billion. It is worth noting that, despite Amazon.com, Inc. having already invested in OpenAI's biggest competitor, Anthropic, they are still choosing to invest more in OpenAI, which in itself is a significant show of trust in OpenAI. It is understood that this large-scale investment is actually a further advancement of the deep cooperation between the two parties. As early as the end of 2025, the two parties had already signed a multi-year cloud services contract worth $38 billion, establishing Amazon.com, Inc.'s web services (AWS) as the key infrastructure provider for OpenAI. According to earlier reports, Amazon.com, Inc. and OpenAI have been in negotiations regarding potential investments since last year, and the final agreement may include terms involving the use of Amazon.com, Inc.'s artificial intelligence chips. According to an unnamed source familiar with the details but keeping them confidential, Amazon.com, Inc. CEO Andy Jassy and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are directly negotiating the investment details. In addition to cash injection, the core of the agreement also involves a mutual exchange of interests on the technical level, meaning that OpenAI may commit to using Amazon.com, Inc.'s in-house Trainium series AI chips on a large scale to reduce dependence on a single hardware provider and increase model training efficiency. Founded in 2015 as a non-profit research lab, OpenAI quickly gained mainstream recognition in 2022 with the launch of the generative AI chatbot Siasun Robot & Automation Chat GPT. Today, OpenAI has grown into one of the most valuable commercial entities in the world - after completing a secondary market stock sale last October, its valuation soared to $500 billion. The source also mentioned that the details of the negotiations between Amazon.com, Inc. and OpenAI are still subject to change, and the final amount may be adjusted, but the list of terms is expected to be signed in the coming weeks. However, based on the latest market trends and media reports, the transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2026. In terms of the competitive landscape, Amazon.com, Inc.'s involvement has caused a significant upheaval in the Silicon Valley power map. Previously, Amazon.com, Inc. was the main supporter of OpenAI's core competitor, Anthropic, and has been investing billions in Anthropic since 2023. Anthropic, founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI executives and researchers, including CEO Dario Amodei, is known for its series of AI models named Claude. Earlier this month, the company completed a round of funding worth billions, with a valuation of $350 billion. AWS was designated as Anthropic's primary cloud service provider in 2023 and became its primary training partner in 2024. It continues to play both of these roles. This shift towards OpenAI showcases Amazon.com, Inc.'s ambition to take a "full bet" strategy in the AI field, aiming to ensure that AWS maintains an advantage in the cloud services battle with Microsoft Corporation's Azure. Meanwhile, the aforementioned source mentioned that OpenAI is also in negotiations with other investors for funding, with the total amount of this round of funding possibly reaching close to $100 billion. Earlier reports stated that Altman traveled to the United Arab Emirates last week for investment negotiations with sovereign wealth funds. The source mentioned that the startup's funding round may be completed in two parts, with first contributions from strategic investors like Amazon.com, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and NVIDIA Corporation. Subsequently, other investors such as SoftBank are expected to participate, with negotiations ongoing for investments of up to $30 billion in OpenAI. It is worth mentioning that Amazon.com, Inc. continues to advance its cost optimization strategy across all business lines to focus resources on accelerating AI research and data center construction. On Wednesday, Amazon.com, Inc. officially announced the layoff of around 16,000 corporate employees, marking the company's entry into the second phase of personnel optimization after initiating a large-scale round of layoffs in October last year. In October last year, Amazon.com, Inc. launched the "Project Rainier" data center campus in Indiana specifically tailored for Anthropic, with a total investment size of $11 billion. During the same period, Amazon.com, Inc. disclosed that its projected capital expenditure for 2026 is expected to reach $125 billion, placing it at the forefront among large tech companies at that time.