In a surprising move that underscores the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, OpenAI has partnered with Google Cloud to meet its escalating computing requirements, despite the two companies being direct competitors in the AI space.
The deal, finalized in May 2025 after months of negotiations, enables OpenAI to tap into Google's cloud infrastructure for both training and running its sophisticated AI models. This collaboration comes as OpenAI's ChatGPT continues to pose a significant challenge to Google's dominant search business, highlighting how computational demands are forcing even rivals to work together.
For OpenAI, this partnership represents a strategic pivot to reduce its dependency on Microsoft, which has been its primary cloud provider since 2019. The company has been actively diversifying its infrastructure sources, including its high-profile Stargate project—a joint venture with Oracle and SoftBank that aims to invest up to $500 billion in AI data centers across the United States over the next four years.
The timing is significant as OpenAI recently announced that its annualized revenue run rate has surged to $10 billion as of June 2025, positioning the company to meet its ambitious growth targets. With over 500 million weekly active users and 3 million paying business customers, OpenAI's computing needs have grown exponentially since ChatGPT's launch in late 2022.
For Google Cloud, securing OpenAI as a customer represents a major win. The deal adds a leading AI innovator to its client roster, which already includes tech giants like Apple and AI startups like Anthropic. Google Cloud generated $43 billion in sales in 2024, accounting for 12% of Alphabet's total revenue, and has positioned itself as a neutral provider of computing resources for AI companies.
"The deal underscores the fact that the two are willing to overlook heavy competition between them to meet the massive computing demands," noted industry analysts. As AI development continues to require unprecedented levels of computing power, such pragmatic partnerships may become increasingly common, reshaping traditional competitive boundaries in the technology sector.