Amazon wrote a due date into its $35 billion bet on OpenAI: the company must either go public or achieve artificial general intelligence by December 31, 2028, or that tranche of the deal disappears. The SEC filing reveals the exact figure as $34,999,999,447.98. Amazon's counsel negotiated it down to the penny because the share price did not divide evenly by $552.02, GeekWire reported. A company valued at $852 billion and its biggest new backer needed a contractual definition of AGI with an expiration date. The $122 billion headline number is real. The contingency is the story.
OpenAI announced the round on March 31, 2026, saying it closed $122 billion in committed capital at a post-money valuation of $852 billion. Nvidia and SoftBank each committed $30 billion and co-led, alongside a16z, MGX, TPG, and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. The round also included more than $3 billion from individual investors via bank channels, the first time retail investors could access an OpenAI funding, TechCrunch reported, and a $4.7 billion revolving credit facility, undrawn at close, supported by JPMorgan, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.
Amazon's total commitment is $50 billion. But $35 billion of it is contingent on triggers that GeekWire first identified in the SEC filing: OpenAI completing a public offering, or reaching AGI. The equity commitment expires on December 31, 2028. If neither condition is met by then, Amazon's obligation to deliver the contingent portion ends. The exact equity purchase amount, $34,999,999,447.98, is a function of the share price not dividing evenly into $35 billion, leaving a remainder of $552.02 that Amazon's counsel would not let stand as an open-ended figure.
The NDA between Amazon and OpenAI is dated May 23, 2023, nearly three years before the deal was announced, GeekWire found. The cloud services agreement includes a commitment by OpenAI to consume 2 gigawatts of Trainium capacity through AWS. That infrastructure commitment is separate from the equity deal and underscores the depth of the commercial relationship beyond the investment terms.
What makes the AGI trigger worth dwelling on is not the financing mechanics. It is the fact that two sophisticated parties had to agree on what AGI means in enough detail to write it into a binding contract with a sunset clause. The filing does not contain the definition. But the deadline is specific: December 31, 2028. Whatever AGI means to Amazon's board, it has an expiration date in it.
OpenAI's financial position gives context for why the contingency matters. The company made $13.1 billion in revenue in 2025, generated $2 billion per month as of the funding announcement, and expects to spend $115 billion over the next four years through 2029. HSBC analysts project OpenAI faces a $207 billion funding shortfall and will not make money by 2030. Annual cash burn is projected to reach $57 billion by 2027. The revolving credit facility is not a sign of weakness — it is standard for companies of this scale — but it underscores that even $122 billion in new capital is a down payment on something larger.
Microsoft, OpenAI's oldest partner, participated in the round but OpenAI did not disclose the size of its investment. Microsoft retains an exclusive IP license and revenue share from its 2019 deal, a relationship that generated an approximately $135 billion stake in the October 2025 restructuring. The Microsoft relationship is both a strategic asset and a concentration risk that OpenAI itself disclosed to prospective investors as part of its pre-IPO investor materials.
Enterprise revenue now makes up 40% of OpenAI's total revenue, up from around 30% last year. ChatGPT has more than 900 million weekly active users and over 50 million subscribers. The ads pilot reached more than $100 million in annualized recurring revenue in under six weeks. These are the numbers that explain why investors are willing to commit $122 billion to a company that is not expected to reach breakeven until 2030.
Amazon's Trainium commitment is not incidental. OpenAI agreeing to consume 2 gigawatts of AWS Trainium capacity means the compute relationship goes beyond the investment, creating a structural dependency on Amazon's custom silicon for a portion of its training workload. For a company that has spent the past two years trying to diversify its compute away from any single provider, this is a notable counter-movement.
The $122 billion figure dominates the coverage. It is a real number and a record for a private company. But $35 billion of it comes with conditions, and the conditions reveal what the two parties actually believe about the timeline for AGI and the likelihood of an OpenAI IPO before the end of 2028. Amazon wrote those conditions into the contract with penny-level precision. The fact that they did is the most honest thing in the filing.
† Add footnote: 'Source-reported; not independently verified.'
†† Rephrase to: 'HSBC analysts project OpenAI faces a $207 billion funding shortfall and will not make money by 2030, according to the Guardian.' Consider seeking confirmation from a registered source or add footnote: 'Source-reported; not independently verified.'