OpenAI is in discussions with Amazon about a potential investment and an agreement to use its artificial intelligence chips, CNBC confirmed on Tuesday.

The details are fluid and still subject to change but the investment could exceed $10 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the talks are confidential. The Information first reported on the potential deal.

The discussions come after OpenAI completed a restructuring in October and formally outlined the details of its partnership with Microsoft, giving it more freedom to raise capital and partner with companies across the broader AI ecosystem.

Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI and backed the company since 2019, but it no longer has a right of first refusal to be OpenAI’s compute provider, according to an October release. OpenAI can now also develop some products with third parties.

Amazon has invested at least $8 billion into OpenAI rival Anthropic, but the e-commerce giant could be looking to expand its exposure to the booming generative AI market. Microsoft has taken a similar step and announced last month that it will invest up to $5 billion into Anthropic, while Nvidia will invest up to $10 billion in the startup.

Amazon Web Services has been designing its own AI chips since around 2015, and the hardware has become crucial for AI companies that are trying to train models and meet growing demand for compute. AWS announced its Inferentia chips in 2018, and the latest generation of its Trainium chips earlier this month.

OpenAI has made more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure commitments in recent months, including agreements with chipmakers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom. Last month, OpenAI signed a deal to buy $38 billion worth of capacity from AWS, its first contract with the leader in cloud infrastructure leader.

In October, OpenAI finalized a secondary share sale totaling $6.6 billion, allowing current and former employees to sell stock at a $500 billion valuation.

WATCH: Oracle says there have been ‘no delays’ in OpenAI arrangement after stock slide

Shares of Chinese chipmaker MetaX Integrated Circuits soared about 700% in their market debut in Shanghai on Wednesday, after the company raised nearly $600 million in its initial public offering.

Shares, which were priced at 104.66 yuan in the IPO, surged to over 835 yuan on debut, marking a 697% jump.

Similar to Moore Threads, which saw a robust debut at the start of the month, MetaX develops graphics processing units for artificial intelligence applications, tapping into a fast-growing sector driven by rising adoption of AI services.

MetaX is part of a growing cohort of local chipmakers building AI processors, reflecting Beijing’s push to reduce dependence on U.S. chips following Washington’s tech curbs on export of high-end technology to China.

Washington has imposed export curbs on U.S. chip behemoth Nvidia, barring sales of its most advanced AI chips to China.

Newer Chinese players such as Enflame Technology and Biren Technology have also entered the AI space, aiming to capture a share of the billions in graphics processing unit, or GPU, demand no longer served by Nvidia. Chinese regulators have also been clearing more semiconductor IPOs in their drive for greater AI independence.

Earlier this month, shares of Moore Threads, a Beijing-based GPU manufacturer often referred to as “China’s Nvidia,” soared by more than 400% on its debut in Shanghai following its $1.1 billion listing.

Macquarie’s equity analyst Eugene Hsiao said investor enthusiasm around Chinese AI-chip IPOs such as MetaX is partly shaped by longer-term expectations that China will build a self-sufficient semiconductor ecosystem as tensions with the U.S. persist.

“For that to work, you need these players. You need names like Moore Threads, Meta X, etc,” he said.

“So I think when investors are looking at these IPOs, they implicitly are thinking about the nationalistic element,” Hsiao noted, adding that the main driver of the frenzy, however, was the firms’ growth potential.

— CNBC’s Dylan Butts contributed to this article.

Self-driving car company Waymo is in talks to raise $15 billion in funding in the new year.

The robotaxi company plans to raise billions from Alphabet, its parent company, as well as outside investors at a valuation as high as $110 billion, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

The latest funding discussions are indicative of Waymo’s status as the leader of the pack in the U.S. robotaxi market. The company has been spending heavily to ramp up its fleet and continue expanding to more regions. Waymo is now either operating its robotaxis, planning to launch service or starting to test its vehicles in 26 markets, in the U.S. and abroad.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Waymo will “meaningfully” contribute to Alphabet’s financials as soon as 2027, CNBC reported Tuesday.  

If the Google sister company winds up raising as much as $15 billion, that would represent more than double the amount of its last funding round. That was a series C round of $5.6 billion at a $45 billion valuation, which closed in October 2024. Alphabet had committed $5 billion in a multiyear investment to Waymo at the time.

That round was led by Alphabet alongside previous backers, including Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price. At the time, Waymo co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov said the funding would go toward expanding its robotaxi service.

Waymo currently serves paid rides to the public in the Austin, San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Atlanta and Los Angeles markets.

Earlier this month, CNBC reported that Waymo crossed an estimated 450,000 weekly paid rides, and the company in December said it had served 14 million trips in 2025, putting it on pace to end the year at more than 20 million trips total since launching in 2020.

The company plans to open service next year in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego and Washington, D.C. Waymo also announced plans to launch its service in London in 2026, which will mark the company’s first overseas service region.

Amazon’s Zoox this year began offering free driverless rides to the public around the Las Vegas Strip and certain San Francisco neighborhoods. Tesla launched a Robotaxi-branded service in Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area, but those cars still had human drivers or safety supervisors on board as of mid-December.

Fundraising plans were first reported by The Information.

WATCH: 2025: The year that the robotaxi went mainstream with Waymo leading the pack