OpenAI has announced a sweeping new funding round and strategic partnerships that reshape its investor base and deepen ties with major cloud and chip providers.
OpenAI’s $110bn Raise Pulls Amazon Deeper into Its Orbit
27 February 2026 - 21:54 CET
By Ana Pereira
The AI giant has secured $110bn in new funding at a $730bn pre-money valuation, according to a 27 Feb article on its website. The round includes $30bn from SoftBank, $30bn from NVIDIA and $50bn from Amazon, with additional financial investors expected to join as the financing progresses. The valuation significantly boosts the value of the OpenAI Foundation’s stake in the company to more than $180bn.
The round underscores the scale of capital required to meet surging global demand for AI services across consumers, developers and enterprises. OpenAI said the new funding will support investments in computing infrastructure, distribution partnerships and balance sheet expansion.
AI boom draws power from bitcoin mining
But the implications also extend into crypto’s core infrastructure. Several publicly traded Bitcoin miners have begun reallocating power capacity toward AI and high-performance computing (HPC) as margins tighten in digital asset mining.
Cipher Digital, formerly Cipher Mining, this week outlined a shift toward HPC data center operations tied to growing demand for hyperscalers – massive cloud computing service providers – while firms such as MARA Holdings and Hut 8 have pursued AI hosting agreements alongside traditional mining.
Amazon expands strategic ties
A central pillar of the funding round is a sweeping expansion of OpenAI’s relationship with Amazon's cloud arm. Amazon will invest $15bn upfront, with a further $35bn dependent on the fulfilment of certain conditions.
Beyond the equity investment, the companies have significantly broadened their commercial ties.
Amazon Web Services will become the exclusive third-party cloud provider for OpenAI’s enterprise platform, known as Frontier, making AWS a primary distribution channel for corporate deployments.
Microsoft role remains intact
The move puts fresh focus on OpenAI’s longstanding partnership with Microsoft, its primary cloud partner since 2019 and exclusive cloud provider for APIs that provide access to OpenAI’s models.
In a separate statement issued the same day, OpenAI said Microsoft will retain its exclusive licence and access to intellectual property across models and products, and that its revenue-sharing structure with Microsoft is unchanged.
"Nothing about today’s announcements in any way changes the terms of the Microsoft and OpenAI relationship," OpenAI said. Microsoft is entitled to 20% of the company’s total revenue through 2032 under the current arrangement.
OpenAI is also deepening its long-standing collaboration with NVIDIA, securing access to three gigawatts of dedicated inference capacity and an additional two gigawatts for training workloads built on NVIDIA’s systems.
The size of the round also highlights the continued willingness of major technology investors to commit unprecedented sums to AI infrastructure, despite the capital intensity and long payback horizons. At the same time, capital, energy resources and technical expertise once dedicated to blockchain validation are increasingly being redirected toward AI workloads, a structural shift whose implications remain uncertain.
