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- OpenAI projects a staggering $115 billion cash burn through 2029, driven by server and AI infrastructure costs.
- Annual spending is set to climb from $8 billion in 2025 to $17 billion in 2026, fueling massive growth.
- Revenue could hit $200 billion by 2030, with ChatGPT expected to generate nearly half of the total.
- A $10.3 billion secondary share sale values OpenAI at $500 billion, signaling strong investor confidence.
OpenAI expects to spend an eye-watering $115 billion in cash by 2029, according to internal projections reported by The Information.
The new estimate is $80 billion higher than its earlier forecast, highlighting how quickly costs are escalating as the company pushes forward with large-scale AI innovation.
A large portion of the rising expenses stems from cloud computing, data centers, and AI model development, all of which require enormous computing power. By 2025, OpenAI’s annual burn rate is projected to exceed $8 billion, before more than doubling to $17 billion in 2026. Nearly $100 billion of this spending will be allocated to servers, underscoring the infrastructure-heavy nature of advanced AI.
Revenue Growth Outpaces Early Forecasts
Despite the massive outflows, OpenAI also expects to generate significant revenue growth. The company projects $13 billion in revenue for 2025, rising sharply to about $200 billion by 2030.
This updated forecast is 15% higher than earlier estimates, reflecting optimism about market adoption of AI-powered tools.
Much of this growth is expected to come from ChatGPT, which has become OpenAI’s flagship product and primary revenue driver. Internal figures suggest that the chatbot alone could generate nearly $10 billion in 2024 and expand to $90 billion by 2030. The growing reliance on ChatGPT highlights both its potential and the competitive pressure to keep scaling.
In parallel with its spending plans, OpenAI has expanded a secondary share sale program to allow employees and early investors to sell up to $10.3 billion worth of shares. The sale effectively values the company at $500 billion, almost double its valuation just six months ago.
The buyers in this round include SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and T. Rowe Price. For employees, especially those who have held shares for over two years, this represents a life-changing liquidity event in a market where IPO timelines remain uncertain.
Secondary sales are increasingly common among late-stage startups like SpaceX, Stripe, and Databricks, offering stakeholders liquidity without the need for a public listing. For OpenAI, it not only helps retain top talent but also signals the company’s confidence in its long-term trajectory.
Balancing Growth With Risk
While the numbers point to explosive growth, the scale of spending raises questions about sustainability. OpenAI’s strategy rests on the assumption that future revenues will outpace today’s burn, allowing it to dominate the AI market.
Investors appear optimistic, as reflected in its swelling valuation, but the risk of overspending remains a concern.
The company’s willingness to spend nearly $100 billion on infrastructure indicates that it sees itself less as a software startup and more as a foundational AI platform provider. This positioning could place it in direct competition with cloud giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, ironically, many of the same companies it relies on for infrastructure today.
