Amazon Partners with OpenAI, Invests $800M in Anthropic to Boost AI Offerings

Amazon, the cloud computing giant, has announced plans to offer its customers the latest AI models from OpenAI. This marks the first time Amazon will provide products from the leading AI startup. The models will be available on Amazon's Bedrock and SageMaker platforms, with the company highlighting their advanced reasoning capabilities as suitable for AI agent development.

The move comes as Amazon seeks to address concerns about its lagging AI development compared to competitors. The company's Bedrock software platform aims to simplify the process of accessing large language models from other companies as well as Amazon's own models. This strategy positions AWS as a "supermarket" for selling various AI tools to enterprises.

Amazon's Bedrock platform will offer OpenAI's gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b models, which feature an "open weights" system design. This design allows developers to easily customize the models for their specific needs. Previously, Microsoft was the sole cloud service provider able to resell OpenAI software, a advantage that has helped its Azure division outpace AWS in growth.

In addition to partnering with OpenAI, Amazon has invested 800 million in AI startup Anthropic. This collaboration aims to enhance Amazon's AI service offerings. AWS will provide Anthropic's Claude model to customers, with Anthropic planning to release an updated version of its strongest AI model. This new version is said to have enhanced capabilities in programming, research, and data analysis.

Amazon's recent financial performance has raised questions about the effectiveness of its significant AI investments. The company reported that its operating profit for the current quarter would be lower than expected, with cloud business growth lagging behind major competitors. AWS's revenue for the second quarter grew by slightly over 17% to 309 billion, just exceeding analysts' average expectation of 308 billion.

The company has appointed a new CEO for its cloud computing division. This leadership change is part of Amazon's broader strategy to strengthen its position in the competitive AI market. The new CEO, who has a long history with AWS, previously served as the engineering head and sales manager. This appointment is seen as a move to bolster Amazon's AI capabilities and compete more effectively with rivals like Microsoft.