OpenAI Compute Spend Could Hit $600 Billion by 2030

That’s according to a report Friday (Feb. 20) by CNBC, which says this figure came months after CEO Sam Altman said the company had made $1.4 trillion in infrastructure commitments.

The artificial intelligence startup is offering up a lower figure and more defined timeline for its planned expenditures, sources told CNBC, amid concerns that its expansion plans outweighed its potential revenue.

Sources told CNBC that OpenAI is projecting that its total revenue for 2030 will exceed $280 billion, divided almost evenly between its consumer and enterprise businesses. They added that the company’s spending plan is designed to tie more directly to anticipated revenue growth.

OpenAI announced a series of multibillion-dollar infrastructure deals last year, teaming with leading chipmakers and cloud companies. The company is working on a funding round that could come to upwards of $100 billion, with roughly 90% of that figure coming from strategic investors, one of the sources told CNBC.

Nvidia is reportedly in talks to invest up to $30 billion in OpenAI as part of the round that could value the company at a $730 billion pre-money valuation, the report added. Other strategic investors include SoftBank and Amazon.

According to the report, sources said OpenAI generated $13.1 billion in revenue last year, compared to a target of $10 billion, while spending $8 billion, less than its $9 billion target.

In other OpenAI news, last week saw a report that the company had launched a 200-plus person effort to develop AI-powered devices such as a smart speaker, smart glasses and a smart lamp, with plans to release the speaker no earlier than February 2027.

In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote last week about the growth of multi-agent systems in the business world. As that report points out, this trend is happening as CFOs are betting on granting agents more autonomy. 

Research from the PYMNTS Intelligence report “CFOs Push AI Forward but Keep a Hand on the Wheel” found that 43% of CFOs said agentic AI could have a major impact on dynamic budget planning. Nearly half use AI to continuously track working capital and cash flows.

“The difference is execution,” PYMNTS wrote. “Instead of using AI to generate insights that humans must interpret, agent systems can update projections, flag variances, initiate adjustments and document changes within defined guardrails.”

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