Follow the Money
The circular economy of AI: chipmakers invest in labs that buy chips; clouds fund labs that buy cloud; the same dollars get announced twice. 79 live deals, $2,008B at face value plus 16 with no disclosed figure — each traced to a source. Data as of 2026-08-30 · JSON.
Showing 3 of 82 deals for Microsoft. Clear.
Bubble Thermometer: 15/100 — cool
15/100 (cool): "bubble" said 0× this week (flat from 0); AI basket market spread unknown; $0B of deals announced this month.
Components: talk 0 · markets 50 · money 0 (weights 40/30/30). Each input links to where it comes from: "bubble" in this week's feed (0, prior week 0) · the AI basket against QQQ over a month · $0B announced in 2026-09. An attention index from this site's own data; it measures temperature, not the future.
Daily readings since 2026-09-16. JSON
Microsoft in focus: its curves keep their colour, the rest fade. The 22 busiest counterparties and the 3 live deals between them that match the filter. Click a company for its page, click a curve to jump to that deal and its source. Curve width scales with the amount (log); colour is the deal type; dashed means reported but not confirmed by the parties; thin means no figure was disclosed.
Money that goes around
Pairs where cash flows both ways — an investment one way, a purchase commitment back. Computed from the deal list, not curated. Open a pair for every deal and its source.
OpenAI ⇄ Microsoft $288B one way · $13B back
- $250B compute / cloud contract, 2025-10-28, announced — Microsoft blog
- $38B revenue share, 2026-04-27, closed / funded — Microsoft blog (Apr 27 2026)
- $13B equity investment, 2023-01-23, closed / funded — Microsoft blog (Oct 28 2025)
Anthropic ⇄ Microsoft $30B one way · $5B back
- $30B compute / cloud contract, 2025-11-18, announced — Anthropic
- $5B equity investment, 2025-11-18, closed / funded — Anthropic
Announced per month — Microsoft
Face value as announced; the grey stubs are deals later cancelled or never closed, which stay out of the total. Click a month to list its deals.
Biggest counterparties
Announced and reported amounts at face value; "up to" commitments count in full — that is how the headlines count them, and why every row carries its notes. Every company name is a page.
Deals that shrank or died
- Microsoft → OpenAI, undisclosed revenue share (2026-04-27) — Microsoft's revenue share to OpenAI (on Azure OpenAI / product revenue) ended: 'Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI.' Amount never disclosed. Microsoft blog (Apr 27 2026) · row
3 deals, with sources
Amounts link to the source they come from; companies link to their pages; types, months and statuses filter the page; the # is the deal's anchor.
| Deal | Amount ▾ | Type | Announced | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI → Microsoft | $38B Cap, reported. Companies confirmed (2026-04-27) revenue share continues through 2030 'at the same percentage but subject to a total cap', independent of AGI; the ~20% rate and $38B cap are per The Information (May 2026), not confirmed by either company. | Revenue share | 2026-04-27 closed / funded | Microsoft blog (Apr 27 2026) · second source single-source figure #047352 |
| Microsoft → OpenAI | $13B $13B committed ($1B in 2019 + $10B in January 2023); Microsoft's 10-Q for the quarter to 2025-09-30 put the funded amount at $11.6B. The October 2025 recapitalization left Microsoft with about 27% of OpenAI Group PBC (as-converted, diluted). | Equity investment | 2023-01-23 closed / funded | Microsoft blog (Oct 28 2025) · second source #df0dba |
| Microsoft → Anthropic | $5B Up to $5B committed 2025-11-18; a portion closed inside the February 2026 Series G. Microsoft booked a $3.2B gain on the stake in its quarter to June 2026. | Equity investment | 2025-11-18 closed / funded | Anthropic · second source #e3c675 |
Deal Watch — reported in the last 45 days (automatic, unverified)
Headlines from the feed go through a model that extracts who-pays-whom; a report appears here only when two different publishers agree on the parties and the amounts agree within 25%. Every publisher name links to the headline. Nothing in this box is in the verified graph above until a data review confirms it against a primary source.
No two-source reports in the window — the extractor needs an AI provider key.
The bubble reads
- AI's $600B Question — Sequoia Capital (David Cahn), 2024-06-20. Annualised AI infrastructure spend implies about $600B of yearly AI revenue is needed to earn a return; most of it is missing.
- The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025 — MIT NANDA, 2025-07. Despite $30-40B of enterprise GenAI spend, about 95% of pilots show no measurable P&L impact.
- Bridging a $1.5tr Data Center Financing Gap — Morgan Stanley Research, 2025-08. About $2.9T of global data-center capex through 2028, only about half fundable from hyperscaler cash flow; the rest must come from bonds, private credit and securitisation.
- $2 trillion in new revenue needed to fund AI's scaling trend — Bain & Company, 6th Global Technology Report, 2025-09-23. Meeting projected 2030 compute demand needs about $2T of annual AI revenue; the industry is about $800B short.
- IMF and Bank of England join growing chorus warning of an AI bubble — IMF Global Financial Stability Report / Bank of England FPC, via CNBC, 2025-10-09. Both flagged AI-concentrated equity valuations comparable to the 2000 dot-com peak and the risk of an abrupt correction.
- World Outlook: '1999 meets 1990' — Deutsche Bank Research (Jim Reid), via Investing.com, 2026-06-06. Frames 2026 as 1999-style tech enthusiasm colliding with a 1990-style oil shock, with an AI investment boom propping up US growth.
Method: a deal is listed only when it traces to a press release, an SEC filing, or top-tier reporting, with its date and status. Amounts are as announced or credibly reported; status says whether a deal closed, is staged, or was only reported. Not investment advice.