Amazon in talks to acquire AI startup Decart for $7 billion as AI computing race heats up

Amazon is in talks to acquire Nvidia-backed AI startup Decart for approximately $7 billion, a deal that could give the e-commerce giant a major advantage in its growing battle with Nvidia over the future of AI computing. The proposed acquisition comes as Amazon pushes deeper into custom AI chips and seeks to reduce the cost of running increasingly demanding AI models.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the negotiations, that the companies are in advanced discussions and could reach an agreement soon. The deal remains uncertain, and another bidder could still emerge.

“Amazon.com is in talks to acquire artificial-intelligence startup Decart in a deal that could be valued at around $7 billion,” the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

At the center of the negotiations is a relatively young startup tackling one of the AI industry’s biggest headaches: moving AI workloads between different types of chips.

Founded in 2023 by Israeli engineers Dean and Orian Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev, San Francisco-based Decart develops software that helps AI developers run models across processors from competing chipmakers without extensive custom engineering.

That capability is becoming increasingly valuable as companies spend billions building AI infrastructure and look for alternatives to Nvidia’s dominant hardware ecosystem.

For Amazon, the appeal goes beyond acquiring another AI startup. Its cloud division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), has invested heavily in developing its own Trainium processors to compete with Nvidia’s GPUs. Decart’s technology could make those chips more attractive to customers concerned about costs, hardware availability, and dependence on a single supplier.

The two companies already have an established relationship. Amazon gave Decart early access to its Trainium3 chip in 2025, according to the Journal. Decart has since emerged as an important player in software that makes AI hardware more interchangeable.

TechStartups first covered Decart in December 2025, when the AI startup partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to use its Trainium chips for AI model training and inference. At the time, Decart was gaining attention for its real-time video generation technology. The partnership now takes on greater significance as Amazon reportedly considers acquiring the startup for approximately $7 billion.

Why Amazon Wants Decart

Decart has built its business around two closely related areas: software that improves how AI models run on different processors and generative AI systems that can produce interactive visual environments.

Its Decart Optimization Stack, known as DOS, helps developers move AI workloads between chip architectures. That flexibility could become increasingly important for cloud providers competing to offer customers lower-cost AI computing.

The startup is developing Lucy, an AI model that can transform live video in real time, and Oasis, which generates interactive simulated environments. Such technology could support applications ranging from gaming and digital content to robotics research and autonomous systems.

Investor interest in Decart has already pushed its valuation sharply higher.

In May, the company raised $300 million in a funding round led by Radical Ventures, with Nvidia joining as a new investor. The financing valued Decart at nearly $4 billion, according to PitchBook data the Journal cited.

A $7 billion acquisition would represent roughly a 75% premium to that valuation, underscoring how aggressively major technology companies are pursuing startups that could help them gain an edge in AI infrastructure.

Amazon isn’t the first company to consider buying Decart.

Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude, explored acquiring Decart for about $6 billion in August before deciding against the deal after due diligence, Bloomberg reported. Its decision left the door open for another potential buyer.

The reported negotiations come as AI competition shifts beyond the race to build larger models. Computing costs, chip availability, and the ability to run AI systems efficiently have become major business concerns.

Amazon faces competition from Microsoft, Google, and other cloud providers investing in their own AI hardware. Owning Decart could give AWS another way to attract developers seeking flexibility across competing chip platforms.

There is an interesting twist: Nvidia itself is an investor in Decart. Amazon could end up acquiring a company backed by the very chipmaker it is trying to challenge.

For now, the $7 billion figure remains a reported possibility rather than a completed transaction. Yet the talks reveal something important about the next phase of the AI boom: the companies that make expensive AI computing cheaper and easier to use are becoming acquisition targets worth billions.