OpenAI taps Google's cloud to deal with demand crush, source says
OpenAI has quietly inked a deal with Google to tap its cloud computing infrastructure to deliver AI services, a source familiar with the arrangement confirmed to Axios.
Why it matters: The deal, which follows the $500 billion Stargate project with Oracle and SoftBank, is part of an effort to expand beyond Microsoft's Azure as OpenAI looks to meet a crush of demand for ChatGPT and other services.
Driving the news: The deal, which was reported earlier by Reuters, adds to the amount of compute that OpenAI can access, but is not a replacement for Microsoft's Azure, which was once OpenAI's exclusive partner.
Under its original deal with Microsoft, OpenAI had to seek a waiver for each outside cloud computing provider, but under a revised agreement the company can now get a set amount of compute capacity from wherever it chooses.
While signed last month, Google is not yet delivering AI compute to OpenAI, nor has the deal been publicly announced.
A Google representative declined to comment, and an OpenAI representative said the company has nothing to announce.
The big picture: OpenAI has been looking to increase its supply of computing capacity in a number of ways, most notably with Stargate, but also through international expansion and other arrangements.
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