AI House of Cards

AI Company Relations

Money flows between big AI companies – last 3 years

Period: 29 Oct 2023 – 29 Oct 2026 · Compiled: 29 Oct 2026 · Currency: USD

Read this first. Almost all figures are announced commitments, not cash already paid. Many are multi-year, some are contingent on milestones, and several are analyst estimates. Rounding is deliberate. Categories overlap in real life (e.g. Nvidia invests in OpenAI and sells it chips), so the grand total is an order of magnitude, not an accounting number.

Summary

Category	Approx. total (3 yrs)	Biggest components	Confidence
Leases (cloud / compute capacity)	≈ $1.0 trillion	OpenAI→Oracle $300B, OpenAI→Microsoft $250B, OpenAI→AWS $138B, Anthropic→Google ~$115B, Anthropic→AWS $110B	Medium – contract sizes are reported, spend is spread over 5–10 years
Supplies (chips & hardware)	≈ $0.6 trillion	OpenAI–Broadcom ~$350B (est.), Anthropic chip-lease vehicles $98B, OpenAI–AMD ~$90B (est.), Meta–AMD up to $60B	Low–Medium – several are gigawatt-based estimates
Investment (minority equity)	≈ $0.36 trillion	OpenAI rounds ~$169B, Anthropic ~$120B, xAI ~$50B	Medium–High – rounds are announced, some tranches contingent
Ownership (acquisitions / control)	≈ $0.37 trillion	SpaceX→xAI $250B (all-stock), SpaceX→Cursor ~$60B, Aligned Data Centers $40B, Nvidia→Groq $20B	Medium – the xAI deal is stock-valued, not cash
Total (rough)	≈ $2.3 trillion		Not strictly additive

For scale: the four largest US hyperscalers (Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta) guide to roughly $730B of capex in 2026 alone.

1. Leases (≈ $1.0T)

Lessee	Provider	Amount	Notes
OpenAI	Oracle	$300B	5 years from 2027, ~4.5 GW
OpenAI	Microsoft Azure	$250B	Incremental commitment, Oct 2025
OpenAI	AWS	$138B	Expanded from $38B
OpenAI	CoreWeave	up to $22.4B	Three contracts, maximum values
Anthropic	Google Cloud	~$114.5B	Reported figure; see "not added" below
Anthropic	AWS	≥ $110B	Over 10 years to 2036
Anthropic	Microsoft Azure	$30B	Nov 2025 deal
Meta	CoreWeave	$14B
Meta	Google Cloud	> $10B	6-year deal
Microsoft	Nebius	$17.4B	5-year GPU capacity
Total		≈ $1,006B

2. Supplies (≈ $0.6T)

Buyer	Supplier	Amount	Notes
OpenAI	Broadcom	~$350B	Analyst estimate for ~10 GW of custom chips
Anthropic	Broadcom (via financing vehicles)	$98B	$35B (Jun 2026) + $63B (Oct 2026); vehicles buy Broadcom chips and lease them to Anthropic
OpenAI	AMD	~$90B	Analyst estimate for ~6 GW; includes warrants for up to ~10% of AMD
Meta	AMD	up to $60B	6 GW; warrants for up to ~10% of AMD
Total		≈ $598B

3. Investment (≈ $0.36T)

Target	Investors / event	Amount	Notes
OpenAI	Oct 2024 round	$6.6B	Thrive, Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank…
OpenAI	Mar 2025 round	~$40B	SoftBank-led
OpenAI	Mar 2026 round	$122B	Amazon $50B, Nvidia $30B, SoftBank $30B; valuation $852B
Anthropic	Series F → H plus strategic stakes	~$120B	$13B (Sep 2025), $30B (Feb 2026), $65B (May 2026); includes Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia commitments – counted once
xAI	Rounds 2023 – Jan 2026	~$50B	Includes $20B Series E (Jan 2026)
Meta	Scale AI (49%)	$14.3B	June 2025 (from my background knowledge, not re-checked)
Intel	Nvidia stake	$5B	Sep 2025
Meta	Stock purchases by Nvidia ($3B) and AMD ($1B)	$4B	Oct 2026
Total		≈ $362B

4. Ownership (≈ $0.37T)

Acquisitions / control deals closed or announced in the period

Acquirer	Target	Amount	Notes
SpaceX	xAI	$250B	All-stock, Feb 2026; combined entity $1.25T
SpaceX	Cursor	~$60B	Reported closed Aug 2026 (press reports)
Investor group (BlackRock, Microsoft, Nvidia…)	Aligned Data Centers	$40B	~80 data-center facilities
Nvidia	Groq (assets)	$20B	Reported by CNBC
Total		≈ $370B

Value of stakes held (mark-to-market, not purchases – not added to the total)

Holder	Stake	Approx. value
Microsoft	~27% of OpenAI Group	~$230B at the $852B valuation (my arithmetic)
Amazon	Anthropic stake (capped, non-voting)	$190.4B (Amazon's own June valuation)
Google	Anthropic stake (capped at 15%)	Up to ~$145B at $965B (my arithmetic)

Reported but not added to the totals

Nvidia → OpenAI "up to $100B" letter of intent: later reshaped into a $30B pure equity investment (already in Investment).
Nvidia guarantee of up to $105B of obligations on an Ohio campus OpenAI will lease.
Anthropic's IPO filing: > $750B of total compute deals, including ~$400B of Google-TPU-based capacity. This overlaps with the Google, AWS and Broadcom lines above, so only the itemized parts are counted.
OpenAI's pending round: up to $30B at a $1.25T pre-money valuation (reported, not closed).
Meta ↔ Nvidia: "millions of GPUs" – no dollar amount disclosed.
Meta ↔ Broadcom (MTIA) and Anthropic ↔ CoreWeave / SpaceX GPU access: no dollar amounts disclosed.