OpenAI has five years to turn $13 billion into $1 trillion

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - 2025/02/04: Open AI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman speaks during the Kakao media day in Seoul. South Korean tech giant Kakao Corp. on February 4 announced partnership with OpenAI to use ChatGPT on its new artificial intelligence (AI) service joining a global alliance led by the U.S. AI company amid intensifying competition in the global AI market. (Photo by Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) | Image Credits:Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images

OpenAI is printing money right now. The company is pulling in roughly $13 billion in annual revenue, with 70% coming from everyday people paying $20 a month to chat with an AI, according to the Financial Times. That’s pretty wild when you consider ChatGPT has 800 million regular users, but only 5% are actually paying subscribers.

Raking in billions though it may be, OpenAI has also committed to spending over $1 trillion over the next decade (yes, trillion). The company has recently locked in deals for more than 26 gigawatts of computing capacity from Oracle, Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom — infrastructure that’ll cost vastly more than what’s coming in.

To bridge this gap, OpenAI is getting creative, reports the FT. A five-year-plan includes exploring government contracts, shopping tools, video services, consumer hardware, and even becoming a computing supplier itself through its Stargate data center project.

A growing number of businesses need to math to work out. Some of America’s most valuable companies are now leaning on OpenAI to fulfill major contracts, notes the FT; if OpenAI falters (no pressure!), it could potentially destabilize the broader U.S. market.

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