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OpenAI frontier models and Codex are now available on AWS

https://openai.com/index/openai-frontier-models-and-codex-are-now-available-on-aws/
340typpo | | 115 | HN
kylemaxwell | parent | next
Every time somebody questions why you might "trust" AWS (or Azure or GCP or whatever), or why you'd pay this premium, I realize they are not accustomed to working in enterprise environments.

In my case, I work at a large enterprise with strict data governance built into customer contracts, and (partly related, partly not) our own governance concerns. Using vendors where you not only have infosec permission, but they are also listed as data processors in our contracts with our customers is the way not to get fired and sued.

If I'm playing around at home, with my own code and data, I can do whatever I want. But with my employer and customer? Absolutely not. It's the same reason we don't use whatever is the flavor of the month frontier model is.

Side hustles and startups just have an entirely different set of constraints and considerations.

btown | parent | next
On top of this, there's a vast difference between "what do you mean that team spent $1000 on AI in their expense report, what did we get for that?" vs. "oh, the company-wide AWS bill went up by a few percent, let's look into that when we have time." The latter makes projects far more viable.
raincole | parent | next
Or to put it simply, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.
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sntran | parent | next
I have just moved from a free environment in which I was able to use any AI harnesses or models to a strict enterprise environment.

I was shocked to realize how difficult it has been to have a GitHub CoPilot license on Azure. I mean, they're both Microsoft products. But no, the IT now has to figure out how to set up a GitHub enterprise, link to Azure subscription, and all that.

foolfoolz | parent
while true, everyone signed this same data privacy agreement with anthropic / openai a long tiem ago
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ykl | parent | next
If you've used AI coding models in a large corporate setting, you'll know that a lot of big corporate deployments basically require using AWS Bedrock for two simple reasons:

1. Large companies tend to already have an existing relationship with AWS, which makes things way easier to go through vs. setting up a new vendor relationship 2. Large companies tend to have strong internal requirements about making sure that internal data stays under company control. With AWS Bedrock, you can be a lot more confident that what you're feeding into the models is not going to end up in someone's training set somewhere. For where I work, this requirement is a dealbreaker for going directly through OpenAI's API instead of going through AWS Bedrock.

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Aurornis | parent | next
If you are wondering why anyone would spend more money to use these APIs through AWS instead of going direct: In some companies it’s nearly impossible to get new vendors approved. If the company has an AWS contract then you have to use what AWS offers.
morpheuskafka | parent | next
Every CEO, board, and middle manager in the world is AI buzzword-obsessed now. Surely asking to sign a contract with the frontier labs directly would not get held up?
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powvans | parent
Even if you can get it approved you are adding surface area to your annual security audits, adding another vendor that needs to be disclosed on security assessments, spreading your data to yet another processor, and adding another invoice and budget discussion. Depending on your customer contracts you may need to notify them of a new vendor. This might trigger a new security review. Oh it’s just another model on Bedrock? Bliss.
| root | parent
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phillipcarter | parent | next
Absolutely huge news for OpenAI. Unimaginable amount of enterprises picked up Claude just because it was available in AWS, and now there's serious competition.
iandanforth | parent | next
This is a great move for OpenAI and one that should worry Anthropic. Bedrock was the only way I could use foundation models for a while given AWS lock-in and security requirements.
2001zhaozhao | parent | next
Good news for competition.

Claude Code keeps omitting new features from people using it through Amazon Bedrock (e.g. auto mode, ultra plan, Claude for Chrome). Hopefully some more competition can get them to rethink their strategy.

rohansood15 | parent | next
Anthropic better get that IPO out soon. Their incredible revenue run-up was basically a result of botched Gemini releases and OpenAI having their hands-tied behind their Azure backs.

Anthropic models were quite literally the only viable serverless API (i.e. Bedrock) models on AWS. They didn't even bother releasing the recent Qwen 3.5/3.6 series. Combined with the token efficiency/ROI focus, I would really like to see how Antrhopic ends Q3.

whatever1 | parent | next
Frontier labs provide “frozen” builds of their models that hyperscalers just serve without collecting data. This is a prerequisite from most of the companies that store sensitive data and still want to use frontier LLMS.
chasd00 | parent | next
Sucks for Azure. They were the chosen one but couldn’t keep up with demand. Once OpenAI got out of that exclusivity deal saying Azure wasn’t reliable I knew AWS was where they were headed.
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AgentOrange1234 | parent | next
This is great news. I wish they were keeping their other models updated. With Gemma 4 and Qwen 3.7 already available on OpenRouter, bedrock is just not keeping up at all.
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jgbuddy | parent | next
great for consumers, great for OpenAI, great for Amazon, not so great for MS / Azure (seems like they don't care anyways)
_pdp_ | parent | next
As usual the more options the better for everyone. While this is not a direct replacement it is good that it exists.
gordonhart | parent | next
Are they? I don't see them in the Model Catalog on Bedrock.
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CSMastermind | parent | next
One of the most attractive things a company can offer its engineers right now is a large token/compute budget.
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chews | parent | next
[flagged]
hmartin | parent | next
Wish I could fail hard enough to have a (nearly) $1T startup with some of both the smartest models and smartest people.
cleaning | parent | next
How is this your reaction to the story?
dzbarsky | parent
Care to elaborate how OpenAI is failing in your opinion?
Handy-Man | parent | next
More expensive than directly sourcing from OpenAI
easton | parent | next
The AWS pricing page says 10% more than OpenAI, which is probably because they’re forcing all inference through the US and data residency is at a 10% premium from the model vendors for whatever reason (because you’ll pay for it).

If they put in a global endpoint like with Claude (or OpenAI directly) then it’ll probably match the direct pricing, if the pattern holds.

(https://aws.amazon.com/bedrock/pricing/, scroll to OpenAI)

cebert | root | parent | next
It’s even more expensive for GovCloud customers. We pay a 30% premium on top of that.
sokoloff | root | parent
It also could be to provide room for enterprise discount pricing without it being money-losing for one of the companies.
yojo | root | parent
I have worked at places that have negotiated flat percentage discounts on all AWS spend.

This explanation seems plausible to me.

BoredPositron | parent
It's for people that can easily pump their AWS bill but not a new vendor.
chopete3 | parent
This is the best thing to happen to AwS. Aws won't push their junk Bedrock equivalents at least.

Enterprises can focus on paying for AWS OpenAI models and get going.