OpenAI’s $122 Billion Round Is Also a $100 Billion AWS Expansion

In the first quarter of 2026, Amazon bought $15 billion of OpenAI Series C preferred stock. It also signed a letter agreement to purchase an additional $35 billion of the same stock. Amazon may buy some or all of those shares at its discretion before a trigger occurs. If it has not already done so, it must buy the remaining shares when OpenAI reaches specified milestones or completes a U.S. initial public offering or direct listing, subject to the agreement’s terms and conditions.

The filing says the parties’ obligations end if Amazon has not invested the commitment amount by December 31, 2028, although that date can accelerate. If conditions are satisfied only after a public listing, the commitment would instead relate to the publicly traded class of OpenAI common stock at the same effective per-share price as the Series C stock.

That is more than an informal intention to invest, but it is not evidence that the full $50 billion had been paid by March 31. Nor can the announced valuation be used to infer Amazon’s stake: the documents omit the information needed to calculate it.

Amazon’s filing says AWS and OpenAI expanded an existing $38.0 billion commitment by $100.0 billion over eight years. Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The larger tie is AWS capacity

The same filing says AWS and OpenAI expanded an existing $38 billion multi-year commitment and commercial arrangement by $100 billion over eight years in the first quarter. It identifies the OpenAI counterparty as OpenAI Group PBC. That expansion includes contractual obligations related to the performance of AWS chips. The filing does not provide an annual spending schedule, pricing, capacity quantities, or the relevant performance requirements.

The filing also describes a commercial arrangement, primarily for AWS cloud services and including AWS chips, plus a collaboration agreement under which certain services using OpenAI models will be made available to Amazon and on AWS. The financing and supply relationship therefore run in both directions: Amazon has exposure to OpenAI’s equity while OpenAI has a disclosed, long-duration commitment to buy cloud capacity.

The relationship is substantial but not exclusive. OpenAI says its infrastructure portfolio includes Microsoft, Oracle, AWS, CoreWeave and Google Cloud, while its chip plans include Nvidia, AMD, AWS Trainium, Cerebras and a chip it is developing with Broadcom. Those are OpenAI’s descriptions of its suppliers and plans, rather than evidence of how much work each provider will receive.

Valuation claims rest on company-reported scale

OpenAI says ChatGPT has more than 900 million weekly active users, it is generating $2 billion in monthly revenue, and enterprise accounts for more than 40% of revenue. The announcement presents those figures as operating milestones; it does not provide audited financial statements or the underlying definitions needed to independently test them.

They nevertheless frame the logic of the AWS arrangement. OpenAI argues that durable compute access lowers delivery costs and supports research, product deployment and revenue. Its actual allocation across competing clouds and chips will determine whether that strategy gives AWS a lasting share of demand or simply another route into a deliberately diversified supply chain.

What the next disclosure must show

The next material evidence is not another headline valuation. It is whether Amazon purchases more of the $35 billion in commitment shares, what the specified milestones are, and how the AWS expansion is scheduled and priced.

Until those terms or subsequent purchases are disclosed, the most precise description is a $15 billion completed stock investment, a $35 billion commitment whose remaining purchases can become obligatory on specified triggers, and a separately disclosed $100 billion, eight-year AWS expansion—not a documented $50 billion cash payment or a known Amazon ownership stake.