Tech giants from Microsoft and OpenAI to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NVIDIA are increasingly collaborating to strengthen their positions across different layers of artificial intelligence. AI technology operates on multiple layers, including hardware, infrastructure, models, and applications, where major companies are making notable advances.
In hardware, AI requires high-performance systems, with chips being the most critical component. Graphics processing units (GPUs) stand out as suitable hardware for AI, with US tech giant NVIDIA dominating the market with over 80% share in AI chips.
The infrastructure layer refers to cloud platforms that run AI applications. In the general cloud market, AWS leads with 29% market share, followed by Microsoft Azure at 20% and Google Cloud at 13%. China's Alibaba Cloud holds fourth place with a 4% share.
In models and applications, AI models such as OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Claude are among the leading players.
OpenAI has been signing deals to strengthen its technological infrastructure. With the rapid growth of AI in recent years, collaborations and investments in this field are increasing.
OpenAI announced a deal with Amazon's cloud platform AWS in early November worth $38 billion. The agreement will provide OpenAI with advanced computing power crucial for AI development and will continue growing over seven years. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that this partnership with AWS aims to make advanced AI accessible to everyone.
This collaboration is also important for NVIDIA, as AWS's infrastructure hosts hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA GPUs, enabling high-level AI applications.
In addition to AWS, OpenAI signed an agreement with AMD last month, creating a 6-gigawatt AMD GPU infrastructure to provide the computing power needed to unleash AI's potential.
NVIDIA is also making strategic investments in AI. In September, OpenAI announced a partnership with NVIDIA to build AI data centers with at least 10 gigawatts of GPU capacity. NVIDIA plans to invest up to $100 billion incrementally as each gigawatt of capacity is deployed.
Microsoft is also actively collaborating in AI. The company signed a $9.7 billion deal with data center operator IREN to expand its processing capacity. Since 2019, Microsoft and OpenAI have shared a vision to advance AI and extend its benefits to a wider audience. Under a recent agreement, Microsoft will hold a 27% stake in OpenAI valued at $135 billion.
Companies developing technology across AI's different layers are leveraging partnerships to consolidate their strength in the field.
