OpenAI Forecasts Spending Will Jump to $115 Billion Through 2029

OpenAI has reportedly told shareholders it expects a steep jump in spending through 2029.

The artificial intelligence (AI) startup is now forecasting that it will burn through $115 billion over the next four years, nearly $80 billion more than it had previously projected, The Information reported Friday (Sept. 5).

The report noted that this “unprecedented” spending projection, adding to the roughly $2 billion it exhausted in the last two years, explains why OpenAI is raising more funds than any private company on record.

CEO Sam Altman has told employees that the company might be the “most capital intensive” startup ever, the report pointed out.

The report added that OpenAI is developing its own data center server chips and facilities to support the technologies, and thus hem in the cost of server rentals.

PYMNTS has contacted OpenAI for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

An earlier report from The Information, published in April, said that OpenAI anticipated spending $46 billion in the next four years and turn cash flow positive in 2029, when it expects to generate about $2 billion in cash.

Now, the Friday report said, OpenAI is forecasting that it will burn more than $8 billion during 2025, up roughly $1.5 billion from a projection earlier in the year. Spending will more than double to more than $17 billion in 2026, or $10 billion more than earlier projections.

In the following two years, OpenAI is projecting it will burn through around a respective $35 billion and $45 billion. In earlier forecasts, the company said it would spend $11 billion in 2028.

In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote last week about new research showing a 98% consensus among U.S. product leaders that generative AI will transform operations in the next three years. That’s according to “From Experiment to Imperative: US Product Leaders Bet on Gen AI,” a PYMNTS Intelligence report based on surveys of chief product officers (CPOs) at companies generating at least $250 million in yearly revenue.

“They weren’t founders tinkering in garages or early adopters chasing hype,” PYMNTS wrote. “These are seasoned executives, the ones who approve budgets, sign vendor contracts, and shape the roadmaps that determine whether a product survives the next quarterly review.”

As for what this means for solution providers and software vendors, the report added, no one generative AI provider can claim a decisive cross-industry lead.

For example, OpenAI leads in the technology field, with 50% of CPOs in that industry saying it was their preferred provider. Google, meanwhile, enjoys an edge among goods companies, at 30%; while Microsoft leads in services, at 24%, followed by Nvidia and Google at 19% each.