The “everything store” might have secured its biggest customer yet.

On Monday, Amazon announced that it had signed a $38 billion deal with OpenAI, offering the ChatGPT maker access to Amazon Web Services’ infrastructure.

On the one hand, the move isn’t too surprising — a continuation of OpenAI’s spending spree as it looks to secure resources to run its power-hungry artificial intelligence models.

On the other, OpenAI’s turn to Amazon shows that the firm is diversifying from its reliance on Microsoft, which had been its exclusive cloud services provider until this year. That could suggest OpenAI is getting ready for an initial public offering as it looks to signal “both independence and operational maturity,” as CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos writes.

Amazon shares surged on the news to close at a record high. Nvidia also had a positive day after Microsoft announced it was granted a license by the U.S. government to export the AI darling’s chips to the United Arab Emirates.

While Big Tech is attracting investor interest, the rest of the market has been rather lackluster.

Even as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose on the back of the tech behemoths, more than 300 stocks in the broad-based index ended the day lower — a warning sign that only a narrow segment of the market is faring well.

Cash-strapped governments are increasingly eyeing citizens’ retirement pots — and experts are sounding the alarm

As fiscal pressures deepen from aging populations and pandemic-era debt, governments are increasingly tapping into a tempting source of capital: citizens’ retirement savings.

The trouble starts when governments interfere and tell funds to invest too much at home, which breaks the delicate balance that fund managers have calculated between risk and reward, said Sébastien Betermier, executive director at the International Centre for Pension Management.

— Lee Ying Shan

British oil giant BP on Tuesday reported stronger-than-expected third-quarter profit as higher crude and gas production outweighed a weak oil trading result.

The London-listed oil and gas major posted underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, of $2.21 billion for July-September period. That beat analyst expectations of $2.03 billion, according to an LSEG-compiled consensus.

BP’s third-quarter net profit came in at $2.3 billion last year and $2.35 billion in the second quarter of 2025.

“We’ve delivered another quarter of good performance across the business with operations continuing to run well,” BP CEO Murray Auchincloss said in a statement.

“We are looking to accelerate delivery of our plans, including undertaking a thorough review of our portfolio to drive simplification and targeting further improvements in cost performance and efficiency,” Auchincloss said.

The oil major’s third-quarter net debt came in at $26.05 billion, broadly flat from the previous quarter, although up from $24.27 billion a year earlier.

London-listed shares of BP rose 0.5% on Tuesday morning.

Some other third-quarter highlights included:

• Operating cash flow came in at $7.8 billion, up from $6.3 billion three months ago.
• BP said it expects divestment and other proceeds to be above $4 billion in 2025.

BP also announced another $750 million in share buybacks over the next three months, maintaining the pace of its shareholder returns, albeit at a reduced level from earlier in the year.

The results come just over eight months after the company launched a fundamental strategic reset.

BP, which has been the subject of intense takeover speculation, is looking to regain investor confidence by slashing renewable spending and prioritizing its traditional oil and gas business.

Investors appear to have broadly welcomed the oil and gas major’s green strategy U-turn, with share prices up more than 13% year-to-date. The improving sentiment has also been attributed to the firm’s leadership shake-up, progress on its cost-cutting program and a string of recent oil discoveries.

BP on Monday announced it had agreed to sell minority stakes in some of its U.S. onshore pipeline assets in the Permian and Eagle Ford basins to private investor Sixth Street for $1.5 billion. BP has previously said it is targeting $20 billion in divestments by the end of 2027.

Last week, British rival Shell reported stronger-than-expected third-quarter profit, citing robust operational performance and higher trading contributions.