OpenAI Cash Burn to Hit $280 Billion by 2030 as Anthropic Profit Surges

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, expects to burn through $280 billion in cash between 2026 and 2030, mostly on computing power and infrastructure. It projects revenue will climb from $36 billion this year to $350 billion by 2030.

According to The Financial Times, the company continues to make substantial losses, as it focuses on boosting its capacity, improving its models, and gaining market share. The company predicts that its cash burn will be about $278 billion between 2026 and 2030. Most of its expenditures will be on computing power.

OpenAI also predicts that its annual revenue will total $840 billion between this year and 2030. It made these revelations to investors as it seeks to raise more capital at a $1.2 trillion valuation. Its last capital raising, which included a $30 billion investment from Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), valued it at over $850 billion.

OpenAI is Facing Major Risks OpenAI is confronting numerous challenges, with Anthropic being the biggest one. Anthropic has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the artificial intelligence industry.

According to The Financial Times, the company made an adjusted operating profit in the second quarter as its revenue jumped 14-fold from a year earlier. Its annualized revenue jumped to $65 billion at the end of July, a figure that analysts expect will hit $120 billion at the end of the year. This growth may help to justify its $2 trillion valuation when it launches its initial public offering (IPO) later this year.

In addition to Anthropic, the company is facing substantial competition from open-weight models, especially from China. These models by companies like Moonshot Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), and DeepSeek have proven to be highly capable and cheaper for consumers.

OpenAI’s most advanced model, GPT-6 Astra, completes a task at about $3.26, while Kimi K3 Max costs just $2. Google’s Gemini and Meta Platforms’ Muse are also highly affordable. As a result, there is a likelihood that the price war will affect its profitability and growth.

Most importantly, OpenAI, like other AI models, is confronting the AI safety issues that have come up recently. Just this week, it was revealed that hackers used Anthropic’s Claude to break into OpenAI.

OpenAI’s models hacked Hugging Face a few months ago, while Google’s AI models hacked three companies. These events, coupled with the rising threat of human extinction, may lead to more regulations in the future.