OpenAI expands government footprint with AWS deal, report says

OpenAI signed a deal to work with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to sell its AI products to the U.S. government for classified and unclassified work.

AWS has confirmed the deal to TechCrunch. The Information was the first to report.

The partnership comes after OpenAI signed a deal with the Pentagon to allow the military to use its AI models in its classified network — a win that came in the midst of conflict between Anthropic and the Department of Defense (DOD). Anthropic has since been named a supply-chain risk by the DOD after it refused to back down on allowing its tech to be used for mass surveillance of Americans and to power fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic has sued the Pentagon in response.

OpenAI’s AWS deal sees the AI giant stepping onto Anthropic’s home turf. Amazon has invested at least $4 billion in Anthropic, and as such, Anthropic uses AWS as its main cloud provider. Claude models are integrated into Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s AI platform for enterprise and government customers, and Claude is one of the most deeply integrated frontier models in AWS GovCloud for public sector use .

The tie-up not only helps OpenAI support the Pentagon through its new contract, but it also expands the AI firm’s federal footprint by positioning it to serve multiple government agencies through AWS’s existing cloud infrastructure. AWS, a major cloud provider to U.S. agencies, has agreed to distribute OpenAI products across its public-sector customer base, an AWS spokesperson told TechCrunch. That includes Amazon Bedrock in government cloud environments like AWS GovCloud and AWS Classified Regions for Secret and Top Secret workloads, per an OpenAI spokesperson.

The OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch that while its models will be available through AWS, it will retain control over its technology by deciding which models are made available. AWS must also provide notice before enabling especially sensitive government agencies, including intelligence customers. OpenAI will coordinate directly with customers on deployment terms, security requirements, and operating conditions, and it can require additional safeguards for particular deployments.

The deal could unlock more enterprise contracts, since companies often see government contracts as a stamp of trust and reliability.

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This article has been updated to include comment and more information from OpenAI and AWS.

Rebecca Bellan is a senior reporter at TechCrunch where she covers the business, policy, and emerging trends shaping artificial intelligence. Her work has also appeared in Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and other publications.

You can contact or verify outreach from Rebecca by emailing rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at rebeccabellan.491 on Signal.

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