AI
🤯OpenAI Restructures Microsoft Deal, Signs $38B AWS Contract, and Misses Growth Targets — All in One Week
The Rundown: OpenAI had a whiplash week: it renegotiated its Microsoft partnership to be non-exclusive, signed a $38B AWS computing deal, announced plans to build an AI smartphone by 2028 — and simultaneously disclosed it missed both its revenue and ChatGPT user growth targets.
The details:
- ●OpenAI and Microsoft amended their deal to cap revenue sharing through 2030, drop the AGI-threshold IP clause, and allow Microsoft model access through 2032 — making the partnership non-exclusive for the first time.
- ●OpenAI signed a $38B AWS computing deal and is building a smartphone with MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Luxshare targeting a 2028 launch, designed to run heavily on AI agents.
- ●OpenAI missed ChatGPT weekly user and revenue targets, with its CFO warning the company may not be able to fund future computing contracts if growth doesn't accelerate.
- ●Anthropic surpassed OpenAI in secondary-market valuation at ~$1 trillion vs. $880 billion, while rival DeepSeek priced its new model 97% below GPT-5.5.
Why it matters: This week exposed a tension at the core of OpenAI's strategy: it's spending aggressively on infrastructure and hardware while its core product growth is stalling. For founders, the lesson is that restructuring partnerships and signing flashy compute deals can't substitute for core product retention. For investors, the Anthropic vs. OpenAI valuation flip is a signal that the frontier AI race is far from decided — and the winner may be whoever can actually convert compute into recurring revenue.
📰 Source: TLDR, The Neuron, Bay Area Times