Amazon reportedly weighs $7B startup acquisition as AI spending accelerates

Amazon is in talks to acquire AI startup Decart in a deal valued at roughly $7 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Decart was valued at nearly $4 billion in May and has ties to Nvidia through its Lucy AI model.

The San Francisco-based company develops software that helps developers switch between different AI chips as companies seek additional computing power.

A deal could come together soon, though talks could fall apart or another bidder could emerge, according to people familiar with the matter.

Three Israeli engineers, Dean and Orian Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev, founded Decart in 2023. Its AI models include Lucy and Oasis.

Lucy can edit live videos in real time, while Oasis can generate simulated environments to train and test robotics and autonomous-driving systems, according to Reuters.

Decart has raised more than $400 million in venture capital from investors including Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Radical Ventures.

Amazon developed its custom AI chip, Trainium3, to compete with Nvidia, which dominates the market for graphics processing units used to power AI systems. Amazon Web Services (AWS) gave Decart early access to the chip last year after its founders impressed AWS representatives, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Anthropic decided against acquiring Decart in September after discussing a potential $6 billion deal, according to Yahoo Finance.

Amazon plans to cut 49,000 desks as AI investment grows

Amazon’s real estate team plans to eliminate 49,000 desks worldwide this year as the company reduces its office footprint.

Amazon’s Global Real Estate and Facilities team outlined plans to reduce its average office vacancy rate from roughly 31% to 22.9% in 2026, according to a transcript of an all-team meeting obtained by The Puget Sound Business Journal.

The plan could eliminate millions of square feet of office space as Amazon adjusts its footprint to match its workforce.

Senior real estate manager Martha Schwarzkopf Doyle said Amazon could reach its goal by allowing leases to expire, “hibernating” offices, subleasing space, or terminating leases at largely vacant locations.

“If you can envision a sold-out Taylor Swift concert and give every single person their desk, that’s how many desks we need to get rid of,” Schwarzkopf Doyle said.

Cutting 49,000 desks would free up more than 10 million square feet of office space, according to The Puget Sound Business Journal.

In 2025, Amazon had 40.2 million square feet of office space in the U.S. and another 28.3 million square feet internationally.

Amazon pledges $1 billion to data center communities amid backlash

Amazon plans to invest $1 billion over the next five years in communities where it operates data centers. The funding will support education, job training, water conservation, and other local priorities amid growing opposition to data center expansion.

In a Friday blog post, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said the company had already spent more than $1 billion in communities with a large data center presence over the past three years.

Garman also said Amazon no longer uses nondisclosure agreements with government agencies on its data center projects and hosts community open houses to explain its plans.

He warned about what he described as misinformation about data centers’ environmental effects and energy prices. He also criticized more than 100 proposed data center moratoriums across the country.

“If these measures are enacted, the U.S. could be writing its own losing ticket to this race, and the consequences would last generations,” he wrote. “As a country, we can’t afford to find ourselves in that position. There is urgency to this data center build-out because we aren’t the only country that sees the benefits of AI for the economy and national security.”

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