OpenAI, the $500 billion artificial intelligence powerhouse, has signed a landmark $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to secure large-scale cloud computing capacity — marking its first-ever partnership with the global cloud infrastructure leader and a major step toward diversifying beyond Microsoft.

Under the newly announced deal, OpenAI will immediately begin deploying workloads on AWS infrastructure, leveraging hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs across U.S.-based data centers. The agreement also outlines plans for a gradual expansion of compute capacity in the coming years as OpenAI scales its next-generation AI models and services.

According to Dave Brown, Vice President of Compute and Machine Learning Services at AWS, “It’s completely separate capacity that we’re putting down. Some of that capacity is already available, and OpenAI is making use of that.”

The first phase of the collaboration will rely on existing AWS data centers, while Amazon plans to build out additional infrastructure dedicated to OpenAI’s workloads as the partnership evolves.

Following the announcement, Amazon’s stock surged 4% on Monday, hitting a record closing high. The e-commerce and cloud giant’s shares have risen 14% over the past two trading days — marking its best two-day performance since November 2022.

The deal underscores OpenAI’s growing demand for computing power amid the global AI boom and highlights Amazon’s renewed dominance in the cloud ecosystem.