The creative stack just got a lot more expensive for everyone who isn’t building the foundation.

On the evening of February 27, OpenAI announced it had raised $110 billion in new funding. The round includes $30 billion from SoftBank, $30 billion from Nvidia, and $50 billion from Amazon, valuing the company at $730 billion pre-money.

This marks the largest single financing deal to date in the AI sector.

Officially, the funds will be used to expand artificial intelligence infrastructure construction, accelerating the democratization of AI.

Sam Altman outlined the specific areas of cooperation with the three partners on X:

• Nvidia: Responsible for providing underlying computing power, offering continuous and scalable training and inference capabilities for OpenAI centered around GPUs and next-generation accelerators;
• Amazon: Providing cloud infrastructure and global deployment capabilities to support OpenAI’s model delivery and commercialization across multiple regions and industry scenarios;
• SoftBank: Assuming a capital and ecosystem role, driving OpenAI’s expansion into broader industrial systems through long-term financial support and the integration of industry resources.

I think this capital concentration makes independent creation increasingly unviable without corporate backing.

Additionally, as an existing shareholder, Microsoft did not miss out.

The two parties released a joint statement confirming that their previous cooperation remains unaffected. Microsoft Azure will remain the exclusive cloud service provider for OpenAI APIs, and Microsoft retains exclusive licensing and access rights to the intellectual property within OpenAI’s models and products.

At the same time, three of the most critical AI resource lines—upstream computing power, cloud infrastructure, and long-term capital—have been tied together in one go.

The Circular Trap: How OpenAI’s $110B Deal Locks Creators into Vendor Silos

For creators, this circular funding model prioritizes chip sales over fair licensing for independent creators. On licensing, exclusive runtime agreements may lock your workflow into specific cloud providers, raising costs. I think when investors demand AGI milestones, the pressure to cut corners on safety and attribution increases.

The Amazon-Microsoft-OpenAI Triangle

In this massive financing round, Amazon emerged as the most generous investor, committing $50 billion.

The capital injection is structured in stages: an initial $15 billion, with a further $35 billion contingent on specific conditions being met within the next few months.

Insiders suggest these “specific conditions” are tied to OpenAI “achieving AGI” or completing a successful IPO.

There is also a critical clause between OpenAI and Microsoft: once AGI is achieved, Microsoft will lose access to its technology. This shifts the balance of power significantly away from Microsoft’s traditional role as OpenAI’s primary cloud partner.

Under the new agreement with Amazon, OpenAI plans to develop a “stateful runtime environment” where its models will run on Amazon’s Bedrock platform.

OpenAI has committed to consuming vast cloud resources on AWS, including approximately 2 gigawatts of Trainium chip compute power, to support Frontier, stateful environments, and other advanced workloads.

Furthermore, both parties are expanding upon the $38 billion agreement signed last November. Over the next eight years, OpenAI plans to consume cumulative cloud computing resources worth approximately $100 billion on AWS.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated, “Today, the world’s two largest AI labs are heavily utilizing Trainium.” Besides OpenAI, the other major user is Anthropic.

Previously, Amazon had invested billions into Anthropic and built an $11 billion data center campus in Indiana specifically for training and running Anthropic’s models, known as the “Project Rainier.”

However, Amazon clarified that its cooperation with OpenAI would not alter its relationship with Anthropic.

Nvidia’s Chip-for-Equity Strategy

The second investor is Nvidia.

In September last year, rumors circulated that Nvidia would invest $100 billion in OpenAI. Subsequent reports suggested the amount might be smaller.

At the time, Jensen Huang specifically debunked claims that Nvidia was abandoning OpenAI:

We are putting a lot of money in; I believe in OpenAI. The work they are doing is incredible.

And just like that, $30 billion arrived.

Under this agreement, OpenAI commits to using 2 gigawatts of training capacity on Nvidia’s Vera Rubin system, plus an additional 3 gigawatts of compute resources (likely in the form of GPUs) for specific AI inference tasks.

In other words, Nvidia serves as both a strategic investor and its chip supplier, effectively paying OpenAI to buy its own chips—a logic of “circular investment.”

SoftBank’s Matchmaking Role

The third investor is SoftBank, contributing $30 billion.

Official announcements indicate that SoftBank’s investment will be disbursed in three installments in April, July, and October 2026.

SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son expressed confidence in OpenAI’s continued growth:

Through this additional investment, we will accelerate OpenAI’s research and ecosystem expansion while advancing our own AI strategy.

Notably, some media outlets suggest SoftBank plays not only the role of an investor but also a “matchmaker.”

Insiders indicate that OpenAI is expected to secure approximately $10 billion in primary equity financing, with related commitments to be finalized within the next month. Investors include sovereign wealth funds and investment firms. It is speculated that these investors may connect through SoftBank.

Microsoft’s Grip Tightens, Yet Diversification Begins

I watched closely as OpenAI reaffirmed its “core” partnership with Microsoft, despite the noise surrounding this deal. The terms are stark: Azure remains the exclusive provider for stateless APIs, and first-party products like Frontier stay on that infrastructure. More critically, the revenue-sharing logic holds firm—even if OpenAI spends money elsewhere, Microsoft gets a cut. They also retain exclusive licensing rights to existing models and future IP.

For creators, exclusive IP deals lock creators into single-platform ecosystems for monetization. On licensing, revenue sharing with cloud providers may indirectly squeeze creator payouts.

Yet, this financing signals a strategic pivot away from total reliance on Microsoft. Amazon’s entry is the clearest indicator of this shift. Alongside an $100 billion AWS consumption commitment over eight years, OpenAI is adopting Amazon’s Trainium 3/4 chips. This move proves they refuse to put all their compute eggs in Azure’s basket.

I think multi-cloud strategies could eventually offer creators more flexible deployment options.

The Circular Investment Trap

This structure reveals a classic “circular financing” loop. Nvidia acts as both shareholder and sole supplier of underlying compute, while Amazon is both investor and future cloud provider. Suppliers invest in their customer (OpenAI), who then spends that capital back on chips or services from those same suppliers. For the vendors, this shifts money from investment expenditure to operating revenue, boosting stock prices and locking in market share. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle designed to protect balance sheets rather than accelerate creative output.

Sam Altman addressed the skepticism directly:

I understand everyone’s concerns; this only makes sense when new revenue flows into the entire AI ecosystem.

This follows OpenAI’s March 2025 round, which raised $40 billion and valued the company at $300 billion—the largest private equity deal in history. Combined with existing cash reserves of roughly $40 billion, OpenAI now controls approximately $150 billion. Despite this war chest, they do not expect positive free cash flow until 2030.

The demand is real. Data from February shows ChatGPT’s weekly active users have surpassed 900 million, with monthly visits hitting 57.2 billion. There are over 50 million individual subscribers and more than 15,000 enterprise customers. Altman admits he is dedicating significant effort to securing compute capacity to meet this load.

For creators, massive capital injections prioritize infrastructure scale over nuanced creative tooling.

The competitive landscape remains brutal. Rival Anthropic recently secured $30 billion from Microsoft and Nvidia, pushing its valuation toward $380 billion. With ammunition loaded by this new influx, we will see what surprising models OpenAI deploys next. But as the compute arms race accelerates, I wonder if the creative community is just along for the ride.