Recently, HSBC released a report indicating that the AI company OpenAI is facing significant financial pressure. The report states that to meet its massive computing power needs, OpenAI will need to raise at least $207 billion (approximately 1.47 trillion RMB) by 2030.
This funding gap prediction is partly based on OpenAI's collaborations with Microsoft and Amazon. Recently, OpenAI signed cloud computing service agreements worth $250 billion and $38 billion respectively with these two tech giants, increasing its total contracted computing power to 36 gigawatts. These agreements are expected to result in annual data center rental costs of up to $62 billion for OpenAI, with cumulative lease costs reaching $792 billion by 2030.
Image source note: The image was generated by AI, and the licensing service provider is Midjourney.
To assess OpenAI's ability to repay, HSBC established a revenue forecast model. According to this model, OpenAI's global user base is expected to grow from the current 800 million to 3 billion, while the proportion of paying users is expected to rise from 5% to 10%. In addition, OpenAI is expected to capture 2% of the digital advertising market. Although these factors may bring substantial revenue growth, its costs are also rising rapidly. Therefore, the report suggests that OpenAI may continue to incur losses over the next decade and will need to rely on financing to subsidize its users and pay high data center fees.
Furthermore, the report also outlines its outlook on the market landscape. In the consumer-level AI market, OpenAI's market share is expected to decline from 71% to 56% by 2030; in the enterprise-level AI market, it will also fall from about 50% to 37%. According to HSBC's model, by 2030, OpenAI's cumulative free cash flow will be approximately $282 billion, plus investments from NVIDIA and other asset disposals, which will bring an additional $26 billion. However, there will still be a $207 billion funding gap. To avoid risks, HSBC recommends adding an extra $10 billion in cash buffer on top of this.
Key Points:
💰 OpenAI is expected to raise an additional $207 billion before 2030 to support computing power needs.
📈 OpenAI's user base is expected to grow to 3 billion, but costs are also rising sharply.
🔍 Market share will decline, and it may face financial pressure and liquidity crisis in the future.
