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, but it surely displays the large demand for computing energy to coach and run AI fashions.
One of many three sources mentioned 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 satisfy rising demand. That features supporting large-scale efforts like its Stargate undertaking 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 additional computing assets to help OpenAI’s AI coaching and mannequin operations, the sources mentioned. 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 multiple winner within the AI house.
OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft declined to remark.
Since launching ChatGPT in late 2022, OpenAI has confronted rising strain 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 mentioned 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 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 accustomed to the state of affairs mentioned OpenAI and Google had been in talks for some time, however current agreements with Microsoft had delayed any deal. Microsoft and OpenAI at the moment are remodeling the phrases of their partnership, together with Microsoft’s future possession stake.
For Google, the timing traces up with its push to develop use of its in-house chips, referred to as tensor processing models or TPUs. TPUs have been as soon as restricted to inner tasks however at the moment are being utilized by exterior shoppers, together with Apple and OpenAI opponents together with Anthropic and Secure Superintelligence.
Including OpenAI to its cloud buyer listing provides Google one other technique to develop its cloud enterprise, which introduced in $43 billion final yr – about 12% of Alphabet’s complete income. Google has pitched itself as a impartial cloud supplier for startups trying to keep away from getting locked into Amazon or Microsoft, and AI corporations have change into a serious supply of spending.
Nonetheless, Google faces its personal pressures. The corporate is pouring cash into AI and expects capital spending to succeed in $75 billion this yr. On the identical time, it’s underneath scrutiny from regulators and strain from traders 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 stress over how assets are shared. CEO Sundar Pichai should weigh the calls for of Google’s enterprise prospects towards these of its personal AI groups.
The pressure is already being felt. Google’s finance chief mentioned in April that the corporate didn’t have sufficient cloud capability to satisfy demand within the earlier quarter. And whereas ChatGPT leads Google’s Gemini in consumer numbers, Pichai has performed down the chance of OpenAI slicing into the corporate’s core enterprise.
(Picture by Jonathan Kemper)
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