The year 2025 is shaping up to be a year of industrial consolidation for AI giants. According to a report from technology media The Information on the 29th, nine major tech companies, including Alphabet, Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic, have comprehensively expanded their "full-stack" AI capabilities over the past year. While nearly all participants have begun venturing into humanoid robotics, this race for independence has ironically made them more interdependent.
The industry landscape has undergone significant changes. OpenAI has expanded its cloud service partnership beyond Microsoft to include Amazon.com, securing a server cooperation agreement valued at $38 billion. Concurrently, Microsoft has pivoted to leasing servers to Anthropic and is procuring Anthropic's models for products like Office 365 Copilot, despite having access to models for free through its partnership with OpenAI.
Alphabet has emerged as the biggest winner in this melee. Its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) have secured a $20 billion order from Anthropic, and the company is negotiating a chip supply agreement with Meta Platforms, Inc.. Furthermore, in 2025, Alphabet began supplying NVIDIA servers to OpenAI on a large scale, positioning itself as a technology supplier for at least five competitors.
This industrial reshuffle is redrawing the competitive boundaries of the AI market. Companies are attempting to reduce costs and lessen dependence on key suppliers like NVIDIA by controlling more segments of the industry chain, yet their new alliances are entangling them in more complex webs of competing interests.
Alphabet is establishing a technological supply hegemony. Alphabet solidified its leading position in the full-stack AI domain in 2025. The company's TPU chip business achieved a breakthrough, with Anthropic placing a $20 billion order and Meta Platforms, Inc. also seeking a usage agreement. This marks the first time Alphabet has sold TPUs to other cloud service providers; employees from competitors like OpenAI reveal these chips help Alphabet achieve significant cost savings in its AI operations.
Alphabet's advantage in the large language model space is equally pronounced. Its Gemini 3 model, released in 2025 and trained on TPUs, is considered to have reached the industry's most advanced level. Beyond technological leadership, Alphabet also secured an agreement with its long-term commercial partner Apple to power Siri queries, effectively replacing OpenAI's previous role.
This supplier role places Alphabet in a unique position. The company leases TPUs and other cloud servers to developers, while also supplying NVIDIA servers to OpenAI on a large scale in 2025, leaving room for potential future sales or leases of TPUs to OpenAI. Alphabet currently provides technical services to at least five competitors.
OpenAI is reducing its dependence on Microsoft. OpenAI's strategic focus in 2025 has been to expand its cloud service relationships beyond Microsoft. The company reached a server agreement with Amazon.com valued at $38 billion, potentially including a substantial cash component, with plans for collaboration in e-commerce. OpenAI also announced larger-scale agreements with Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud.
On the hardware and product front, OpenAI launched ambitious plans. The company made a $6.5 billion equity acquisition of a design team led by former Apple chief designer Jony Ive to develop wearable AI devices. Although products might not launch until 2027, OpenAI has already laid groundwork across smart glasses, smart speakers, wearable pins, and digital recording devices.
OpenAI has also begun developing or controlling server clusters for its R&D, seeking greater autonomy at the infrastructure level. These moves indicate the company is filling gaps in its AI stack to compete for the rapidly growing consumer and enterprise AI services market.
Meta leads in devices but lags in models. Meta Platforms, Inc. has made significant progress in the AI hardware device arena. Its Meta glasses have positioned the company far ahead of competitors like Apple in AI-powered devices, albeit in a niche market. The company also released an API to sell its Llama models directly to customers, fulfilling previous expectations.
However, Meta faced setbacks in core technology. Llama 4 failed to achieve major performance improvements, leaving it unable to compete with leading AI models and causing the company to fall behind in developing a state-of-the-art proprietary model. To counter this, Meta aggressively acquired talent in 2025, with improvements expected in 2026.
Meta is seeking more technical collaborations to address its weaknesses. The company is in talks with Alphabet regarding a TPU usage agreement, attempting to boost its AI training capabilities with external chip resources. This strategic shift reflects the pressure Meta faces in developing its own models.
xAI and Anthropic are rapidly catching up. xAI has made progress in several areas. The company enhanced both its large language model quality and its NVIDIA-based training clusters, although its LLM still trails behind those from Alphabet, OpenAI, and Anthropic in most real-world applications. xAI's Grok powers key features within the X app, improving the experience for many users, especially in interpreting otherwise confusing posts.
Grok also appears to attract users seeking adult content through a chatbot. xAI is developing an enterprise AI application called Macrohard—a semantic reversal of Microsoft. Elon Musk's other company, Tesla, seems to be in a leading position regarding humanoid robots among major AI firms, although its Optimus robot still faces challenges like "hand issues."
Anthropic's product business is reportedly flourishing based on its undisclosed financial data. The company has gained traction with both enterprise and individual customers and established a significant partnership with Microsoft—which leases NVIDIA servers to it while also procuring Anthropic models for products like Office 365 Copilot. Anthropic has also initiated an ambitious plan to develop or control its own server clusters.
Humanoid robots have become a new battleground. 2025 could be called the year of the robot, at least for major AI companies. As Anthropic, Meta, and xAI refine their AI hardware and software portfolios, nearly all participants have begun research and development into humanoid robotics.
This shift reflects both the current competitive AI landscape and the vision of humanoid robots operating in every factory and home. Alphabet, Amazon.com, and OpenAI have all taken steps to develop humanoid robot software or hardware, albeit at early stages and facing significant challenges. Alphabet, Amazon.com, and NVIDIA currently appear focused on software development.
Amazon.com also has significant moves in wearable AI devices, advancing in the form of augmented reality glasses. These emerging industries represent the next growth frontier AI companies wish to participate in, while also seeking to capture more revenue or achieve long-term cost savings by controlling a more complete AI "full-stack."
Microsoft's chip progress and NVIDIA's adjustments. Microsoft's only notable progress in server chips comes from its ongoing development of the Maia chip, but it still lags behind most competitors. The company's strategy is more evident in adjustments to its cloud services and partnerships—maintaining its role as OpenAI's primary cloud provider while expanding cooperation with Anthropic.
NVIDIA, through a recent reorganization, has stepped back from direct competition with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, although it hasn't exited the market entirely. This adjustment reflects the intense competition in the cloud services market and a realignment of industrial specialization.
Despite efforts by various companies to reduce reliance on key suppliers like NVIDIA, NVIDIA's GPUs remain central to AI training. Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon.com all provide server leasing services based on NVIDIA chips to other companies, underscoring the chipmaker's enduring importance in the industry chain.
