OpenAI is popping to Google for assist with its rising computing wants, three sources have advised Reuters. The transfer is sudden given the rivalry between the 2 in synthetic intelligence, nevertheless it displays the large demand for computing energy to coach and run AI fashions.
One of many three sources stated the deal was finalised in Might after months of dialogue. OpenAI has been working to ease its reliance on Microsoft by including different cloud suppliers to fulfill rising demand. That features supporting large-scale efforts like its Stargate mission and maintaining with commitments made in current offers with chipmakers and infrastructure distributors.
For Google, the deal brings a brand new high-profile buyer to its cloud platform. The corporate will present further computing sources to help OpenAI’s AI coaching and mannequin operations, the sources stated. This comes as ChatGPT continues to problem Google’s core search enterprise. Nonetheless, Google executives not too long ago acknowledged that there could also be room for a couple of winner within the AI house.
OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft declined to remark.
Since launching ChatGPT in late 2022, OpenAI has confronted rising stress to scale up its compute capability – each for coaching giant language fashions and for inference, or operating these fashions in actual time. On Monday, OpenAI stated its annualised income had reached $10 billion as of June 2025, fuelled by rising use of its instruments.
Earlier this yr, OpenAI teamed with SoftBank and Oracle on the $500 billion Stargate infrastructure effort and signed multi-billion-dollar agreements with CoreWeave. The corporate can also be engaged on designing its personal chip to chop again on exterior {hardware} use, Reuters reported in February.
The cope with Google follows a shift earlier this yr that ended OpenAI’s unique reliance on Microsoft’s Azure. An individual conversant in the state of affairs stated OpenAI and Google had been in talks for some time, however present agreements with Microsoft had delayed any deal. Microsoft and OpenAI are actually remodeling the phrases of their partnership, together with Microsoft’s future possession stake.
For Google, the timing strains up with its push to increase use of its in-house chips, referred to as tensor processing models or TPUs. TPUs have been as soon as restricted to inside initiatives however are actually being utilized by exterior shoppers, together with Apple and OpenAI rivals together with Anthropic and Secure Superintelligence.
Including OpenAI to its cloud buyer checklist offers Google one other option to develop its cloud enterprise, which introduced in $43 billion final yr – about 12% of Alphabet’s whole income. Google has pitched itself as a impartial cloud supplier for startups seeking to keep away from getting locked into Amazon or Microsoft, and AI corporations have turn out to be a significant supply of spending.
Nonetheless, Google faces its personal pressures. The corporate is pouring cash into AI and expects capital spending to achieve $75 billion this yr. On the identical time, it’s underneath scrutiny from regulators and stress from buyers who need to see returns on their billions.
Internally, the deal provides one other layer of complexity. Google’s AI lab DeepMind competes with OpenAI, and promoting computing energy to a rival can create pressure over how sources are shared. CEO Sundar Pichai should weigh the calls for of Google’s enterprise clients towards these of its personal AI groups.
The pressure is already being felt. Google’s finance chief stated in April that the corporate didn’t have sufficient cloud capability to fulfill demand within the earlier quarter. And whereas ChatGPT leads Google’s Gemini in consumer numbers, Pichai has performed down the danger of OpenAI slicing into the corporate’s core enterprise.
(Picture by Jonathan Kemper)
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