OpenAI acquires Ona (formerly Gitpod) to run Codex agents for hours in the cloud
OpenAI is buying Ona — the Kiel, Germany company that used to be Gitpod — and the logic is entirely about endurance. Ona builds secure cloud environments where agents can keep running and checkpoint their progress continuously, which is what lets a Codex agent grind on a task for hours after you've closed your laptop. Ona reports over 5 million weekly active users, up more than 400% from early 2026; the price wasn't disclosed and the deal still needs regulatory approval.
Why it matters: The ceiling on coding agents has never been raw intelligence alone — it's how long they can run unsupervised without losing state or a place to execute. Owning the cloud-execution and checkpointing layer is how OpenAI turns Codex from a burst assistant into something that owns a multi-hour task, and it tells you where the product roadmap is pointed: away from autocomplete, toward durable autonomous work. For builders, the second-order effect is that the sandbox becomes strategic infrastructure, not a commodity — whoever controls where agents run controls their security boundary, their cost, and their reliability. Expect the other labs to secure or build equivalent execution layers, because a smarter model that can only run for ninety seconds loses to a dumber one that can run all afternoon.