The companies that dominate AI are best understood as pairs: a cloud provider that supplies chips, computing capacity, and money, and a model developer that spends much of that money back on the provider's cloud. In a staff report released on January 17, 2025, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission examined three such pairs (Microsoft with OpenAI, Amazon with Anthropic, and Google with Anthropic) and listed publicly reported investments of USD 13.75 billion, USD 8 billion, and USD 2.55 billion. Canada's Competition Bureau reported similar concerns from consultation respondents on January 27, 2025.
Key takeaways
- The FTC studied three partnerships between large cloud providers and two AI developers, using company documents submitted through September 2024.
- Its staff flagged three areas to watch: access to computing and engineering talent, switching costs, and exposure of sensitive information to the cloud partner.
- The report is not a legal finding. It states that it is not a formal legal or economic analysis of the partnerships.
- Canada's Competition Bureau summarized 28 submissions and said it monitors private-sector AI partnerships.
- Terms have changed since: Microsoft and OpenAI announced a new agreement on October 28, 2025.
Why "biggest" depends on the layer
Lists of the largest AI companies mix very different measures: revenue, valuation, users, chips sold, or models released. The FTC report avoids that problem by describing a technology stack with four layers: AI chips, cloud computing, data and models, and applications. The partnerships it studied cut across all four. A cloud provider may design chips, rent out the computing capacity, invest in a model developer, and then sell that developer's model inside its own products.
That is why a ranking by one measure says little about who holds influence. A company with a small share of consumer chatbot use can still depend on a single cloud provider for the capacity it needs to train its next model. The report also notes that it covers three partnerships only, so its observations should not be read as describing every relationship between cloud providers and AI developers.
What the FTC examined
The Commission authorized the study under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act in January 2024 and sent orders to five companies: Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft as cloud providers, and Anthropic and OpenAI as developers. Staff drew on non-public documents the companies produced through September 2024, together with public reporting through January 2025. The Commission voted 5-0 to allow staff to issue the report. Two commissioners, Andrew Ferguson and Melissa Holyoak, concurred in part and dissented in part.
The staff report describes five features of the deals:
- Cloud partners hold significant equity and certain revenue-sharing rights in the developers.
- Cloud partners hold consultation, control, or exclusivity rights, in some cases including board seats or consultation rights, to varying degrees.
- Developers committed to spend a large portion of the investment on the partner's cloud services, which the report calls circular spending.
- The partners share resources and information, including discounted computing and co-development plans for chips.
- Both sides gain chances to expand products, such as running a developer's models on the partner's cloud platform.
Reported investments, as the report tabulated them
The report's first table collects investment amounts from public reporting and company announcements. The figures are totals reported up to the time of the study, and several later rounds are not included.
| Partnership | Publicly reported investment in the report | Cloud-spending commitment noted in the report |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft and OpenAI | USD 13.75 billion | Described as "billions" |
| Amazon and Anthropic | USD 8 billion | At least USD 4 billion, not counting a later USD 4 billion investment |
| Google and Anthropic | USD 2.55 billion | At least USD 3 billion |
The report treats these as public figures and does not claim to have audited them. Its own research relied on the non-public documents, which it summarizes in aggregated form to protect trade secrets.
Three areas staff said to watch
The staff did not conclude that any partnership broke the law. It identified questions that traditional antitrust tools could examine. The first is access to inputs: a cloud partner might limit computing capacity for developers other than its own partner, and a partnership could affect the supply of engineering talent. The second is switching costs. The report points out that Amazon and Google each design AI chips available only through their own clouds, so a developer that relies on those chips would face both cloud and chip migration costs. It also notes that OpenAI was still moving its services to Azure about 17 months after the 2019 partnership began, according to changes in its public code.
The third is information. The cloud partners may see model information, chip co-design details, partner finances, and customer usage and revenue figures that other firms do not. The FTC press release quotes then-Chair Lina Khan as saying such partnerships can create lock-in, deprive start-ups of key inputs, and reveal sensitive information.
The Canadian view
The Competition Bureau published a discussion paper on March 20, 2024 and released its consultation summary report on January 27, 2025. It reports 28 submissions from individuals, advocacy groups, academics, law firms, industry associations, and large technology companies. Many respondents said that a few large firms hold significant shares of certain AI input markets, partly because of computing costs and proprietary data, and that exclusive agreements between cloud providers and major developers could lock smaller firms out of key inputs. One submission cited by the Bureau, from the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, said public information suggests computing can account for as much as 80 percent of the costs of operating an AI start-up. Other respondents stressed that investment is needed for the technology to grow.
The Bureau says it monitors private-sector partnerships through environmental scanning, media monitoring, and talks with international counterparts. Submissions urged it to use its market study powers, and the report does not say the Bureau will.
What changed after the report
Partnership terms are not fixed. On October 28, 2025, Microsoft announced a new agreement with OpenAI after OpenAI's recapitalization. The post says Microsoft holds about 27 percent of OpenAI Group PBC on an as-converted diluted basis, that OpenAI contracted to buy an additional USD 250 billion of Azure services, and that Microsoft no longer has a right of first refusal to be OpenAI's compute provider. Anyone reading older rankings or deal summaries should check the date, since each of these figures can change with the next funding round or contract.
Questions to ask about any "biggest players" list
- Which measure is used (revenue, valuation, users, compute, models), and from what year?
- Does the list separate chip makers, cloud providers, model developers, and application companies?
- Are investments and cloud-spending commitments counted twice, once for each side?
- Is the source a regulator, a company filing, or a marketing page?
- Does the list name the date of the figures?
FAQ
Did the FTC find that Microsoft, Amazon, or Google acted illegally?
No. The report is a staff study and says it is not a formal legal or economic analysis. It lists areas to watch and notes that traditional antitrust tools could examine them.
Which AI companies did the FTC study?
Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft as cloud providers, and Anthropic and OpenAI as AI developers. The study covered only the Microsoft-OpenAI, Amazon-Anthropic, and Google-Anthropic partnerships.
What does circular spending mean?
The report uses the term for deals in which a cloud provider invests in a developer and the developer commits to spend a large portion of that money on the provider's cloud services.
Does Canada regulate these partnerships separately?
The Competition Bureau enforces Canada's competition law. Its January 2025 report says the consultation will inform how it protects and promotes competition in the AI market, and it does not describe a separate rule for partnerships.
Related reading
- Major AI trends of 2022
- How the Global Partnership on AI works
- AI and the future job market
- Whether AI depends on mathematical knowledge
More in AI Basics.
Last verified: October 2026
Sources
- FTC Issues Staff Report on AI Partnerships and Investments Study, Federal Trade Commission, January 17, 2025
- Partnerships Between Cloud Service Providers and AI Developers, Staff Report, FTC Office of Technology, January 2025
- Consultation on Artificial Intelligence and Competition, summary report of submissions, Competition Bureau Canada, January 27, 2025
- The next chapter of the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership, Microsoft, October 28, 2025