Foreword

Alyson Shontell

Editor-in-Chief

Fortune AI reporter Sharon Goldman here, filling in for Alyson. For the most ambitious leaders, there’s nothing more thrilling—or more perilous—than betting big on the future. That describes today’s AI industry to a T, as companies pour billions into data centers, chips, and energy in the race to build ever more intelligent and powerful systems.

That’s why all eyes are on OpenAI’s massive infrastructure buildout—the Stargate mega-data center campuses, the dealmaking with Nvidia (No. 31), AMD (No. 167), and Broadcom (No. 88), and the growing question of whether all that spending is a sign that we’re witnessing an AI bubble about to pop.

Few realize that one person in particular has emerged as the power broker turning OpenAI’s high-stakes gamble into reality: president and cofounder Greg Brockman. While CEO Sam Altman may be OpenAI’s globe-trotting visionary and public face, Brockman—his longtime ally—has become the company’s high-visibility operator. He’s leading OpenAI’s vast infrastructure mission, to which the company has already committed roughly $1.4 trillion to deploy about 30 gigawatts of compute capacity—roughly the electricity used by 25 million homes. It’s an audacious investment for a company generating only about $20 billion in annual revenue.

In my deep-dive profile, I explore how Brockman serves as the behind-the-scenes architect, translating Altman’s vision into hardware, investment, and political capital. His central role as a kind of builder-in-chief to, as he told Fortune, “deliver intelligence at unprecedented scale,” marks a remarkable reemergence for an executive whose future once seemed uncertain. He was removed from OpenAI’s nonprofit board at the time of Altman’s 2023 ouster and later took a months-long sabbatical in 2024.

Just two months after his return, OpenAI unveiled the Stargate Project, a White House-announced joint venture with President Donald Trump, Oracle (No. 87), and SoftBank (No. 320 on the Fortune Global 500)—an audacious plan to invest up to $500 billion over four years to build U.S. data centers and other AI infrastructure. Brockman has been a key negotiator behind many of Stargate’s deals, including a multibillion-dollar chip partnership with AMD. CEO Lisa Su told Fortune that Brockman’s insistence on “thinking big” was essential to making it happen.

But that scale of ambition has also drawn fresh scrutiny: After backlash this week, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar clarified comments suggesting the U.S. government could “backstop” the company’s financing deals. That underscores just how high the stakes have become, for OpenAI and for its growing roster of Fortune 500 partners.

—Sharon Goldman, AI reporter

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Deals & Developments

Amazon (No. 2) announced a $38 billion deal with OpenAI that will facilitate OpenAI’s artificial intelligence processes running on Amazon Web Services infrastructure, starting immediately. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a release that the deal “strengthens the broad compute ecosystem that will power this next era and bring advanced AI to everyone.”
Apple (No. 4) reportedly is close to a $1 billion per year deal to use a Gemini AI model developed by Google, owned by Alphabet (No. 7), to upgrade Apple’s existing Siri voice assistant, according to sources who spoke to Bloomberg. The publication reported earlier this year that Apple had tested, but ultimately rejected, other AI models including OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Microsoft (No. 14) agreed to a contract with data center business IREN whereby the company will provide Microsoft with its Nvidia GPUs from a Texas facility for the next five years. The deal is worth approximately $9.7 billion and will provide Microsoft with much-needed data center capacity. Meanwhile, IREN also announced a $5.8 billion deal with Dell Technologies (No. 44) to provide GPUs and other equipment.
Charles Schwab (No. 164) agreed to acquire Forge Global, a private shares platform, for $660 million. The deal comes amid growing demand for shares in pre-IPO companies as valuations of private companies like OpenAI continue to soar.
Kimberly-Clark (No. 213) agreed to acquire Kenvue (No. 281) in a deal worth $48.7 billion, bringing companies including Kleenex and Band-Aid under one company if the takeover is approved. The announcement comes just weeks after the Trump administration claimed that the use of Kenvue’s Tylenol by pregnant women leads to an increased risk of autism in children, which the company denies.
SM Energy (No. 993 on the Fortune 1000) agreed to acquire Civitas Resources (No. 644) in a $12.8 billion all-stock merger that will result in Civitas shareholders actually owning 52% of the combined company. SM Energy president and COO Beth McDonald will lead the combined company, making it one of the largest oil and gas producers headed by a woman.

Overheard

“The ultimate defense in our industry is in innovation.”

—Novo Nordisk (No. 368 on the Fortune Global 500) CFO Karsten Munk Knudsen on the Danish pharma giant’s prospects for future success as expiration dates for some of its GLP-1 medication patents—which underpin blockbuster diabetes and obesity drugs Ozempic and Wegovy—loom.

On earnings calls:

Pfizer (No. 67) raised its guidance for full-year adjusted earnings to a range of $3 to $3.15 per share, even as revenue fell 7% year-over-year. CFO Dave Denton said the company expects to save $7.7 billion by the end of 2027 by optimizing its processes.
Uber (No. 101) surpassed revenue expectations with third-quarter revenue rising 20% to $13.46 billion. In a statement announcing the earnings, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi highlighted the quarter’s 22% year-over-year jump in trips as “one of the largest trip-volume increases in the company’s history.” Despite that, the company noted that “certain significant legal proceedings or governmental investigations” cost it $479 million during the quarter.
Warner Bros. Discovery (No. 114) reported $9.05 billion in quarterly revenue, a 6% decline from the same period last year that reflects steep losses in its cable TV segment. Demand for movies including Superman and Weapons sent the company’s studio business up 24%, however.
Qualcomm (No. 117) beat earnings expectations with $11.27 billion in quarterly revenue as the manufacturer of mobile phone chips tries to pivot into the AI era. The company has announced that it will release two AI accelerator chips, the first to debut in 2026 and the second in 2027.
McDonald’s (No. 165) posted a 3% incr