Google signs multi-billion dollar deal with Mira Murati's AI start-up
What's the story
Thinking Machines Lab, the AI start-up founded by ex-OpenAI executive Mira Murati, has signed a major multi-billion-dollar deal with Google. The agreement will see the lab expand its use of Google's cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. This includes systems powered by NVIDIA's latest graphics processing units (GPUs). The deal is worth several billion dollars and gives access to Google's newest AI systems built on NVIDIA's new GB300 chips.
Market moves
Google's pursuit of cloud deals with AI developers
Google has been aggressively pursuing cloud deals with AI developers. The strategy is part of a larger plan to integrate its cloud services with other offerings such as storage, Kubernetes engine, and Spanner (its database product). Earlier this month, Anthropic signed a deal with Google and Broadcom for several gigawatts of tensor processing unit (TPU) capacity. These are custom-designed chips by Google for machine learning workloads.
Strategic alliance
A look at the deal
This isn't the first time Thinking Machines has signed a deal with a cloud services provider. The lab had earlier partnered with NVIDIA in a deal that included an investment from the chipmaker. However, this new agreement isn't exclusive, meaning Thinking Machines could work with multiple cloud providers over time. It shows Google's intent to partner early with fast-growing frontier labs like Thinking Machines.
Product launch
Murati founded Thinking Machines after leaving OpenAI
Murati founded Thinking Machines in February 2025 after leaving her position as OpenAI's chief technologist. The company raised a $2 billion seed round at a $12 billion valuation soon after its inception. It remained secretive until October when it launched Tinker, a tool that automates the creation of custom frontier AI models. This product is what Google's cloud deal will help support and develop further.
Technical backing
Reinforcement learning workloads support in the new deal
The latest deal gives a glimpse into what Thinking Machines is working on. Google said it can support the start-up's reinforcement learning workloads, which Tinker's architecture relies on. Reinforcement learning is a training approach that has powered recent breakthroughs at labs like DeepMind and OpenAI. The scale of this Google Cloud deal shows just how computationally expensive that work can be.