OpenAI expects to burn through roughly $278 billion in cash between 2026 and the end of 2030, according to an internal presentation reviewed by the Financial Times, a projection that lays bare the enormous gap between the company's explosive revenue growth and its even faster-growing spending on computing power.
The Financial Times reported the figures on Friday, and Reuters and The Information quickly followed with corroborating coverage. According to the presentation, OpenAI's negative free cash flow for the 2026-2030 period is projected at $278 billion — the headline number that was widely rounded to "nearly $280 billion" in coverage — with computing power and infrastructure alone expected to cost approximately $856 billion over the period. For more context on this story, see our ongoing AI news.
The Numbers Behind the Burn
The same presentation contains the revenue trajectory that OpenAI is betting will eventually close the gap. The company forecasts revenue rising from about $36 billion this year to roughly $350 billion in 2030, with cumulative revenue reaching approximately $840 billion through the end of the decade, the FT reported.
Even against that tenfold revenue expansion, the spending plans imply a company that will need continuous access to outside capital for years. OpenAI raised about $122 billion in March, but the FT's reporting indicates that this capital could be exhausted by 2028 if spending follows the planned trajectory.
The Burn Is Actually Improving
One of the less-noticed details in the FT report is that the new projection is better than the company's own prior forecast. In May, OpenAI had projected negative free cash flow of roughly $305 billion over the same period, according to the report. The current $278 billion figure therefore represents an improvement of about $27 billion.
The report also notes that new model launches helped lift OpenAI's annualized revenue by about 20 percent in July. The company has meanwhile been cutting prices to compete with Anthropic and with lower-cost open-weight model providers, a dynamic that supports usage growth while pressuring margins.
Funding Talks and a Delayed IPO
The projections arrive at a delicate moment. As AI Buzz Wire reported earlier this week, OpenAI has entered early discussions with investors about a funding round at a valuation of more than $1.2 trillion, and the FT notes the company is seeking an even higher figure.
The company had previously targeted an initial public offering this year after confidentially filing paperwork in June, but those plans have been delayed amid concerns about the pace of frontier AI development and questions over how public markets would value a company carrying such large projected losses. Reuters reported last week that OpenAI expects cumulative cash burn of this magnitude while continuing to ramp spending on computing power and infrastructure.
The Wider Ecosystem Is Along for the Ride
OpenAI's funding requirements increasingly extend well beyond the company itself. According to the FT's reporting, infrastructure companies backed by Nvidia, Oracle, and SoftBank have entered large agreements tied to OpenAI's future demand for computing capacity, making the ChatGPT maker's ability to keep raising capital systemically important across the AI infrastructure sector.
That interdependence has drawn scrutiny from analysts who worry about circular financing arrangements, in which chipmakers, cloud providers, and AI labs effectively fund one another's growth. If OpenAI's revenue materializes on schedule, these commitments look visionary; if it slips, the same agreements could amplify stress throughout the ecosystem.
What to Watch Next
Several milestones will test whether the projection holds. The most immediate is the rumored funding round: a close at or above the reported $1.2 trillion valuation would give OpenAI a long runway and validate investor appetite for pre-profit AI giants. The second is the company's delayed IPO, which now appears likely to slip further as management waits for either stronger margins or more favorable market conditions.
The third is competition. Anthropic has pushed hard on enterprise revenue and profitability, while Chinese open-weight labs continue to compress prices at the low end of the market. OpenAI's own forecast assumes it can grow revenue tenfold in five years while simultaneously spending more on compute than almost any company in history — a bet that the FT's reporting now makes fully public.
For now, the company's message to investors is consistent: the losses are the plan, not an accident. The $278 billion figure is striking, but it is presented alongside a path to $350 billion in annual revenue. Whether markets continue to fund that path is arguably the single most important question in the AI economy heading into 2027.
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