OpenAI Collaborates With Google Cloud In A Surprising Deal Despite Becoming An AI Rival

OpenAI, utilizes Google's cloud services to meet the increasing computing needs. (photo: x @Google Discovery)

JAKARTA OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, will leverage Google's cloud services to meet growing computing needs. This deal marks a surprising collaboration between the two giants that have been known as the main competitors in the artificial intelligence sector (AI).

The deal, which has been talked about over the past few months, was finally agreed in May 2025, according to a source. The move reflects how much computational needs to train and run AI models are now starting to obscure competition limits, and is OpenAI's strategy to reduce dependence on Microsoft, its main partner so far.

Google Cloud, which is an additional capacity provider, will support OpenAI's infrastructure in the training and operations of their AI model. Although Google and OpenAI are in tight competition, especially since ChatGPT is considered the biggest threat to Google's dominance in the search business, this cooperation continues. Even Google executives had stated that the AI race would not be won by just one party.

Both OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft declined to comment on this report.

Since the appearance of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, OpenAI has faced a surge in demand for computing capacity known as compute for both large language model training and for carrying out the inference or processing of data used by users.

OpenAI announced Monday that the company's annual revenue has now touched 10 billion US dollars (Rp162.7 trillion), signaling the increasingly massive adoption of AI in various sectors.

Previously, OpenAI had collaborated with SoftBank and Oracle on a $500 billion infrastructure project called Stargate, as well as struck a billion-dollar deal with computing service providers such as CoreWeave. The company is also finalizing a homemade chip design to reduce its dependence on external hardware providers.

This agreement with Google is part of OpenAI's strategic steps to reduce Microsoft's dominance, which from the start provided data center infrastructure through Azure. According to sources, discussions between Google and OpenAI have actually been going on for a long time, but were delayed due to OpenAI's exclusive contract with Microsoft.

Now, Microsoft and OpenAI are renegotiating their billions of dollars worth of investment, including the share ownership portion of Microsoft in OpenAI in the future.

For Google, this deal comes as they expand their use of internal chips, TPU (Tensor Processing Units), which were previously used only internally. This move has attracted other big clients such as Apple and a number of startups such as Anthropic and Safe Super Intelligence, two OpenAI competitors founded by former OpenAI executives.

Additional OpenAI as a customer shows how Google utilizes internal AI technology from hardware to software to strengthen its cloud business.

Google Cloud, which scored sales of 43 billion US dollars (Rp699.6 trillion) and accounted for 12% of Alphabet's revenue by 2024, seeks to position itself as a neutral cloud provider amid competition with Amazon and Microsoft, in order to attract AI startups whose infrastructure needs are huge.

But on the other hand, Alphabet is now facing pressure to show the returns from massive capital expenditures in the AI sector, which is estimated at 75 billion US dollars this year, while maintaining profitability amid threats of competition and antitrust surveillance.

Google's AI unit, DeepMind, is also competing directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in developing the best AI model that can be applied to consumer applications.

Selling computing capacity to competitors such as OpenAI does increase revenue, but also reduces the supply of chips for Google's own internal needs. This agreement complicates the decision of Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in allocating resources between Google's interests and consumers.

Even Alphabet's CFO, Anat Ashkenazi, revealed that in the last quarter, Google still lacked capacity to meet its cloud subscriber demand.

Although ChatGPT is far ahead of Google's chatbots in terms of monthly user numbers, and many analysts predict Google's dominance in searches will be disrupted, Pichai remains confident Google's position will not be easily shifted.