OpenAI Says Its Business Will Burn $115 Billion Through 2029 (theinformation.com)
(Monday September 08, 2025 @11:21AM (msmash)
from the all-the-money-in-the-world dept.)
- Reference: 0179086134
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/09/08/1426211/openai-says-its-business-will-burn-115-billion-through-2029
- Source link: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-says-business-will-burn-115-billion-2029
An anonymous reader shares a report:
> OpenAI recently had both good news and bad news for shareholders. Revenue growth from ChatGPT is accelerating at a more rapid rate than the company projected half a year ago. The bad news? The computing costs to develop artificial intelligence that powers the chatbot, and other data center-related expenses, will rise even faster.
>
> As a result, OpenAI projected its cash burn this year through 2029 will rise even higher than previously thought, [1]to a total of $115 billion . That's about $80 billion higher than the company previously expected. The unprecedented projected cash burn, which would add to the roughly $2 billion it burned in the past two years, helps explain why the company is raising more capital than any private company in history.
[1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-says-business-will-burn-115-billion-2029
> OpenAI recently had both good news and bad news for shareholders. Revenue growth from ChatGPT is accelerating at a more rapid rate than the company projected half a year ago. The bad news? The computing costs to develop artificial intelligence that powers the chatbot, and other data center-related expenses, will rise even faster.
>
> As a result, OpenAI projected its cash burn this year through 2029 will rise even higher than previously thought, [1]to a total of $115 billion . That's about $80 billion higher than the company previously expected. The unprecedented projected cash burn, which would add to the roughly $2 billion it burned in the past two years, helps explain why the company is raising more capital than any private company in history.
[1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-says-business-will-burn-115-billion-2029
We'll pay for it eventually (Score:2)
by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 )
Just waiting for $200/mo price tag to drop once VC money runs out.
Re: (Score:2)
by wed128 ( 722152 )
I suspect it'll eventually be per-prompt or per-token billing, because for heavy users even $200 a month would be a loss
Re: (Score:2)
by gweihir ( 88907 )
It will probably be a bit higher as soon as they actually have to break even.
Ask ChatGPT ... (Score:5, Funny)
by PPH ( 736903 )
... how to turn a profit.
Then stand back when the data center power consumption spikes and it catches fire.
Take cover (Score:3)
When the AI bubble bursts, it's going to be wild.
Re: (Score:3)
OpenAI is private, so you can't short its stock even if you wanted to.
And while I cannot predict when the bubble will burst, it has to at some point. This level of crazed spending is unsustainable.
Re: (Score:3)
No, but you could short NV. Good luck with that.
Re: (Score:2)
> OpenAI is private, so you can't short its stock even if you wanted to.
There are plenty of proxy businesses you could short, though, including various power companies or Nvidia, if one had the appetite.
Re: (Score:3)
The relevant aphorism is that "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent".
So one should only morally short these stupidities.
Re:Take cover (Score:4, Insightful)
You should generally avoid shorting stocks, even if you're fairly convinced something is in a bubble or is ludicrously overvalued. It's not that you're wrong about your assumptions, it's that you have no idea when the bubble will burst, and the same forces that are inflating the bubble are likely to keep inflating it until it bursts (well, d'uh!), so 90% of the time, your call will be made when the shares are valued even more highly than they were when you made the call.
Re: (Score:3)
Mmmhmm.
I get that technology has always been a disruptive influence in human effort, where everything from the plow to electronic business records has reduced the number of labor-hours required to achieve a result or has enabled results that couldn't be achieved without the technology, but it's been pretty universal that there's been someone who's been ultimately responsible for using the technology correctly, and that the only technologies that really survive are those that produce reliable, consistent, ve
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the really useful applications of AI such as protein-folding, speech-to-text, image recognition for quality control or to aid in medical diagnostics are not LLMs.
It's LLMs specifically that are hot garbage, and also that are being heavily hyped by the AI industry.
Re: (Score:2)
> It's LLMs specifically that are hot garbage, and also that are being heavily hyped by the AI industry.
Indeed. Even LLMs have some uses, but these nowhere even remotely to justify the money that gets burned on them.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. And nobody, except some suppliers and some individuals, will have made a profit. It is like crapto all over, tons of value just destroyed and nothing to show for it. Or, come to think of, all those insane gold-rushed of the past. The idiots never learn.