Microsoft has entered into a $9.7 billion cloud services contract with artificial-intelligence cloud service provider IREN that will give it access to some of Nvidia’s chips.

The five-year deal, which includes a 20 percent prepayment, will help Microsoft as it looks to keep up with AI demand.

Last month, the software maker reported its quarterly sales grew 18 percent to $77.7 billion, beating Wall Street expectations while also surprising some investors with the huge amounts of money it is spending to expand its cloud computing infrastructure and address the growing need for AI tools.

Microsoft spent nearly $35 billion in the July-September quarter on capital expenditures to support AI and cloud demand, nearly half of that on computer chips and much of the rest related to data center real estate.

“IREN’s expertise in building and operating a fully integrated AI cloud — from data centers to GPU stack — combined with their secured power capacity makes them a strategic partner,” Jonathan Tinter, president of business development and ventures at Microsoft, said in a statement. “This collaboration unlocks new growth opportunities for both companies and the customers we serve.”

Microsoft also announced new deal with OpenAI last week that pushed the Redmond, Wash., company to $4 trillion in valuation for the second time this year.

The agreement gives the software giant an approximately 27 percent stake in OpenAI’s new for-profit corporation but changes some of the details of their close partnership.

Microsoft’s $135 billion stake will be just ahead of the OpenAI nonprofit’s $130 billion stake in the for-profit company.

OpenAI last week said it has reorganized its ownership structure and converted its business into a public-benefit corporation after two regulators, the Delaware and California attorneys general, said they would not oppose the plan.

The restructuring paves the way for the ChatGPT maker to more easily profit off its artificial-intelligence technology even as it remains technically under the control of a nonprofit.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that “the most likely path” for the newly formed business is that it becomes publicly traded on the stock market, “given the capital needs that we’ll have and sort of the size of the company.”

IREN also said this week that it signed a deal with Dell Technologies to buy the chips and ancillary equipment for about $5.8 billion. The Australian company anticipates the chips being deployed in phases through next year at its Childress, Texas campus.