OpenAI Projects $20 Billion Revenue Run Rate as Company Commits $1.4 Trillion to AI Infrastructure

Sam Altman says OpenAI has $20B ARR and about $1.4 trillion in data center commitments | TechCrunch

Rarely has a month gone by in 2025 without OpenAI signing another multi-billion-dollar data center deal. In a lengthy post on X on Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly clarified the totals. "We expect to end this year above $20 billion in annualized revenue run rate and grow to hundreds of billion [sic] by 2030. We are looking at commitments of about $1.4 trillion over the next 8 years," he wrote. While the post was largely a response to a brouhaha over comments his CFO made, and quickly walked back, concerning government-backstopped loans, Altman also listed a number of future business plans he believes will generate significant revenue. He said OpenAI has an upcoming enterprise offering. Earlier this week, OpenAI said it already had a million business customers. He named consumer devices and robotics. In May, OpenAI acquired Jony Ive's io, and they are reportedly working on a palm-sized AI device. Altman mentioned scientific discovery as an upcoming business. Not much is known about it yet, except that OpenAI VP Kevin Weil mentioned a newly launched OpenAI for Science some months ago. Altman also said OpenAI could become a cloud computing provider: "We are also looking at ways to more directly sell compute capacity to other companies (and people); we are pretty sure the world is going to need a lot of 'AI cloud', and we are excited to offer this." That's a bold idea for a company that doesn't yet have its own network of data centers. Beyond revenue, Altman noted that the company may also pay for its needs the old-fashioned way: selling more equity or taking on more loans.

Sam Altman says OpenAI will top $20 billion in annualized revenue this year, hundreds of billions by 2030

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to media following a Q&A at the OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas, U.S., Sept. 23, 2025. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Thursday that the artificial intelligence startup is on track to generate more than $20 billion in annualized revenue run rate this year, with plans to grow to hundreds of billions in sales by 2030. The company has inked more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure deals in recent months to try and build out the data centers it says are needed to meet growing demand. The staggering sum has raised questions from investors and others in the industry about where OpenAI will come up with the money. "We are trying to build the infrastructure for a future economy powered by AI, and given everything we see on the horizon in our research program, this is the time to invest to be really scaling up our technology," Altman wrote in a post on X. "Massive infrastructure projects take quite awhile to build, so we have to start now." OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, but has become one of the fastest-growing commercial entities on the planet following the launch of its chatbot ChatGPT in 2022. The startup is currently valued at $500 billion, though it's still not profitable. In September, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC that OpenAI was on track to generate $13 billion in revenue this year. Friar caught the attention of the Trump administration this week after she saying at at event that OpenAI is looking to create an ecosystem of banks, private equity and a federal "backstop" or "guarantee" that could help the company finance its investments in cutting-edge chips. She clarified those comments late Wednesday, writing in a post on LinkedIn that OpenAI is not seeking a government backstop for its infrastructure commitments. "I used the word 'backstop' and it muddied the point," Friar wrote. "As the full clip of my answer shows, I was making the point that American strength in technology will come from building real industrial capacity which requires the private sector and government playing their part." Venture capitalist David Sacks, who is serving as President Donald Trump's AI and crypto czar, said Thursday that there will be "no federal bailout for AI." He wrote in a post on X that if one frontier model company in the U.S. fails, another will take its place. Altman said Thursday that OpenAI does "not have or want government guarantees for OpenAI datacenters." He said taxpayers should not bail out companies that make poor decisions, and that "if we get it wrong, that's on us." "This is the bet we are making, and given our vantage point, we feel good about it," Altman wrote. "But we of course could be wrong, and the market -- not the government -- will deal with it if we are."

​​OpenAI Projects $20 Billion Annual Revenue, Plans $1.4 Trillion Infrastructure Spend by 2033 | AIM

"We are trying to build the infrastructure for a future economy powered by AI." OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said the company expects to surpass an annualised revenue run rate of $20 billion by the end of 2025 and is planning infrastructure commitments of around $1.4 trillion over the next eight years, as it scales up computing power to meet growing demand for AI systems. OpenAI intends to fund its expansion through continued revenue growth, potential equity and debt raises, and by selling computing capacity directly to other companies. "We expect to end this year above $20 billion in annualised revenue run rate and grow to hundreds of billions by 2030," Altman announced in a post on X. "We are looking at commitments of about $1.4 trillion over the next eight years." Altman clarified that the company is not seeking government guarantees for its data centres, pushing back on speculation following recent comments from OpenAI's chief financial officer, Sarah Friar. "We do not have or want government guarantees for OpenAI data centres," he said. "Governments should not pick winners or losers and taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions." Instead, Altman suggested that governments could build and own their own AI infrastructure, with benefits accruing to the public. "We can imagine a world where governments decide to offtake a lot of computing power and get to decide how to use it...But this should be for the government's benefit, not the benefit of private companies," he wrote. Altman said the only area where OpenAI has discussed potential government-backed financing is semiconductor fabrication. "The basic idea has been to ensure that the sourcing of the chip supply chain is as American as possible," he said, emphasising that this differs from private datacenter financing. Responding to concerns about whether OpenAI could become "too big to fail", Altman said, "If we screw up and can't fix it, we should fail, and other companies will continue on doing good work. That's how capitalism works." He also addressed why the company is investing at such a scale now rather than expanding gradually. "We are trying to build the infrastructure for a future economy powered by AI. Massive infrastructure projects take quite a while to build, so we have to start now," he said. Altman noted that the company faces severe compute constraints, which limit new features and model rollouts. "Based on the trends we are seeing...the risk to OpenAI of not having enough computing power is more significant and more likely than the risk of having too much," he said. He added that OpenAI's long-term mission requires scaling up to support breakthroughs in areas such as scientific discovery and healthcare. "We no longer think it's in the distant future," Altman wrote. "Our mission requires us to do what we can to not wait many more years to apply AI to hard problems, like contributing to curing deadly diseases." Altman concluded that while OpenAI's plan carries risks, market forces -- not government intervention -- should determine its outcome. "We plan to be a wildly successful company, but if we get it wrong, that's on us," he said.

Sam Altman Projects OpenAI Revenue to Hit $20B -- Where the Money Comes From

OpenAI's consumer-facing ChatGPT plans account for roughly half of its revenue. Last week, White House A.I. adviser David Sacks sent a sharp message to Silicon Valley: the U.S. government won't rescue A.I. companies that overreach. "There will be no federal bailout for A.I.," he wrote on X. The statement came in response to comments by Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI, who had suggested the company might need government support as it spends heavily on A.I. infrastructure. Friar later clarified that OpenAI was not seeking a government "backstop" for its infrastructure commitments. Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter Sign Up Thank you for signing up! By clicking submit, you agree to our <a href="http://observermedia.com/terms">terms of service</a> and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime. See all of our newsletters In reaction to Sacks's remarks -- and apparently in an attempt to reassure investors and calm concerns about an AI bubble -- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the next day that the company is on a healthy path to profitability despite its large spending. OpenAI is on track to reach "$20 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2025 and grow to hundreds of billions by 2030," Altman wrote on X. OpenAI disclosed in June that it had hit $10 billion in annual recurring revenue. Altman's projection suggests that the company's revenue will double in a matter of months. However, it continues to spend heavily. For all of 2024, OpenAI generated $5.5 billion in revenue, while posting a net loss of $5 billion, CNBC reported. OpenAI's revenue comes from three main channels: Consumer Subscriptions (55-60 percent): Consumer products, like paid versions of ChatGPT, account for roughly half of OpenAI's business, according to third-party estimates based on OpenAI's disclosures and news reports. The free tier acts as a broad funnel to drive users to the $20/month ChatGPT Plus and the $200/month ChatGPT Pro plans. Enterprise Solutions (25-30 percent): OpenAI products are used by millions of organizations, from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Plans range from ChatGPT Team ($25-30 per user/month) to Enterprise ($60/seat/month), with custom deployments for certain sectors, like education and health care. API and Developer Platform (15-20 percent): Developers embed OpenAI models into their products (for coding, automation, reasoning). Major firms such as Microsoft, Snowflake, HubSpot and Salesforce have been cited as users of the API. While revenue is growing rapidly, so is spending. OpenAI is reportedly burning some $8 billion a year, and the rate could climb to $45 billion by 2028. The company has committed roughly $1.4 trillion over the next eight years to building data centers and inked massive GPU deals with Nvidia and AMD. This pace inevitably raises memories of past tech bubbles, where spectacular growth masked underlying fragility. Altman himself recently warned that investor enthusiasm around A.I. has reached bubble territory, likening it to the late-1990s dot-com boom and calling some startup valuations "insane." Still, in his X post last week, Altman reaffirmed the company's independent stance. "We do not have or want government guarantees for OpenAI data centers," he said. "We believe that governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions or otherwise lose in the market."

OpenAI is targeting $20bn in revenue by 2025, with hundreds of billions by 2030

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced on Thursday that the company anticipates annualized revenue of over $20bn in 2025, with a long-term goal of several hundred billion by 2030. This spectacular growth comes less than three years after the launch of ChatGPT, which marked the beginning of the commercialization of OpenAI's products. Valued at $500bn, the group remains in deficit but aims to become a pillar of the future economy based on artificial intelligence. The announcement is accompanied by an impressive figure: OpenAI has reportedly signed more than $1.4 trillion in infrastructure agreements to build the data centers needed to scale up its models. Altman justified this effort by saying he wants to build the foundations for tomorrow's economy, while acknowledging that these large-scale projects take time to come to fruition. In September, CFO Sarah Friar had cited a much lower estimate of $13bn in annual revenue, highlighting the ambitious revision that has since taken place. However, this trajectory has raised questions, particularly after Friar's ambiguous comments about a possible need for a federal "safety net" to finance investment in semiconductors. In response to criticism, she corrected her statements, emphasizing the need for public-private cooperation without direct government budgetary involvement. The White House responded firmly through David Sacks, President Trump's AI advisor, ruling out any form of public support for AI companies. Altman also clarified that OpenAI was not seeking any public funding, stating that the company would bear the consequences of its strategic choices alone.