OpenAI has signed a five-year contract worth $11.9 billion with CoreWeave on Monday to deliver AI infrastructure used for training the ChatGPT maker’s models.
The deal includes OpenAI receiving $350 million in CoreWeave stock linked to the cloud computing provider's upcoming IPO.
CoreWeave will not receive any proceeds from the share issuance to OpenAI, according to Reuters, which was first to report on the deal.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sees the need for "reliable compute" to continue training his company's models at scale, noting that the deal would be "complementing" its concurrent commercial deals with Microsoft and Oracle.
It would also add to the AI firm's ventures with Japan's Softbank for Project Stargate.
The agreement comes at a strategic moment for both companies as competition in AI infrastructure and development heats up.
For OpenAI, it represents a diversification of computing resources beyond Microsoft, its primary partner.
For CoreWeave, the deal provides a significant boost ahead of its anticipated $35 billion public offering expected to headline the U.S. IPO lineup for 2025 as it seeks a $4 billion raise.
CoreWeave stands at the precipice of what's now considered a first for the generative AI era.
With $1.4 billion in cash reserves, the company still faces financial pains as it looks to scale.
Despite generating $1.92 billion in revenue for fiscal 2024—a 737% increase compared to 2023—CoreWeave reported an $863.4 million net loss.
In any case, the deal with OpenAI comes just days after CoreWeave laid out plans to acquire AI developer platform Weights & Biases through a separate $1.7 billion deal in a bid further to consolidate its position in the AI infrastructure space.
CoreWeave, founded in 2017 as a crypto mining operation focusing on Ethereum, pivoted to providing specialized AI infrastructure in 2019.
The company has since assembled more than 250,000 of Nvidia's AI GPUs, making it one of the semiconductor firm's largest customers, according to data from its SEC filing submitted last week.
Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs are leading CoreWeave's upcoming Nasdaq debut, where its shares will trade under the symbol CRWV.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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