AWS Just Became a New Home for OpenAI’s Models

OpenAI’s decision to make its models available on Amazon Web Services, just a day after loosening its long-standing exclusivity with Microsoft, signals a decisive shift toward a multi-cloud strategy that is reshaping the balance of power in the AI industry, as major technology companies compete not only to build the most advanced models but to control the infrastructure on which those models are trained, deployed and monetised

OpenAI has announced its AI models will be available through Amazon Web Services, a day after the firm reworked its relationship with Microsoft to allow it to run products across multiple cloud providers.

AWS customers will be able to access OpenAI’s models, as well as its Codex coding agent, via Amazon Bedrock, the companies said. The services are expected to become generally available in the coming weeks.

“This is what our customers have been asking us for for a really long time,” AWS Chief Executive Matt Garman said at a launch event in San Francisco.

Until now, developers on AWS had access to so-called open-weight models from OpenAI that were introduced on the platform in August.

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman delivered a recorded message for the announcement, as he is currently in court in Oakland in a case involving Elon Musk.

“I wish I could be there with you in person today, my schedule got taken away from me today,” Altman said in the video. “I wanted to send a short message, though, because we’re really excited about our partnership with AWS and what it means for our customers, and I wanted to say thank you to Matt and the whole AWS team.”

The companies also introduced Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI, a service designed to help customers build customised AI agents that can retain memory of past interactions.

Microsoft has been a key provider of computing infrastructure to OpenAI since before the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, said in an internal memo earlier this month that while the Microsoft relationship has been critical, it “has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are — for many that’s Bedrock.”

On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft said they would revise their partnership to allow the AI company to cap revenue-sharing payments and deliver services across multiple cloud providers. Andy Jassy described the move as “very interesting” in a post on X.

OpenAI and Amazon have deepened ties in recent months. In November, OpenAI announced a $38 billion commitment with AWS, shortly after stating that Microsoft Azure would be its sole cloud provider for certain API products built with third parties.

Three months later, OpenAI expanded its relationship with Amazon, which said it would invest $50 billion in the company. OpenAI said it would use two gigawatts of AWS’s Trainium chips to train AI models.

The partnership developments follow a report by The Wall Street Journal that OpenAI had missed internal targets on users and revenue, which weighed on shares of AI hardware companies including Nvidia and Broadcom.

“This is ridiculous,” Altman and OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said in a statement responding to the report. “We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.”

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