Even after big U.S. tech companies posted first-quarter earnings surprises, market attention shifted to privately held OpenAI. As a “capex shock” — capital spending rising far faster than revenue — ripples across the AI industry, some investors are even discussing bankruptcy scenarios for OpenAI.
According to the IT industry on May 3, Evercore and Bank of America raised their forecast for total AI capital spending in 2027 to more than $1 trillion after big tech companies reported first-quarter results. While major U.S. tech companies posted revenue growth of 17% to 33%, their capex growth ran at more than twice the pace. In after-hours trading following earnings, shares of Meta and Microsoft fell sharply. The concern is that it remains unclear when the surge in spending will translate into profits, reinforcing fears of an AI bubble.
After those earnings reports, attention focused on OpenAI. The company has signed capital spending commitments totaling $1.4 trillion for 2025 to 2032, including investments by partners such as Azure, AWS, Oracle and CoreWeave. Over the same period, its AI operating and training costs — computing spending — are estimated at $600 billion.
Market analysts say OpenAI’s revenue growth is likely to lag that of big tech. Major tech companies can lean on steady income from advertising, cloud services and commerce to support AI investment, but OpenAI lacks that kind of cushion, increasing its risk.
Sebastian Mallaby, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that OpenAI’s annual losses are widening rapidly and that cumulative cash burn could reach $115 billion by 2029. If current trends continue, he warned, the company could face a liquidity crunch by mid-2027. The argument is that OpenAI’s computing infrastructure is expanding much faster than revenue, and cash could run out before that gap narrows.
Similar concerns have been reported inside the company. The Wall Street Journal reported that Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar formally raised with executives that actual revenue is not keeping pace with the scale of data center computing contracts already signed.
Altman and Friar quickly issued a joint statement disputing the report, but the fallout spread beyond OpenAI. Oracle shares fell 7%, and CoreWeave and SoftBank also declined. Bloomberg Intelligence said, “OpenAI missing its revenue targets is a direct risk factor for Oracle’s financial targets.” The episode underscored how dependent the broader ecosystem has become on OpenAI, with even reports of internal friction moving publicly traded tech stocks.
Shifts in competition are also adding to OpenAI’s financial pressure. Anthropic has rapidly absorbed enterprise demand since launching its coding agent “Claude Code,” and as of April 7 it had surpassed OpenAI in annualized revenue. Google’s Gemini is gaining share in the consumer market by linking to its search and Android ecosystem. As rivals push into a market OpenAI helped create, OpenAI faces a dilemma: spending more just to hold its position.
Some observers say OpenAI has bought time by raising money. In March, OpenAI raised $122 billion from investors including Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, securing a valuation of $852 billion. That has led to assessments that near-term bankruptcy risk is limited. Still, if much of that funding has already been committed upfront through data center and computing contracts, the key question is whether revenue can catch up with the pace of expanding capital spending before the next funding round.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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