The two labs at the heart of the bet, their own revenue forecasts set against what they've already promised to spend. These are the companies' optimistic numbers — and one of them still doesn't add up.
OpenAI
its own revenue forecast
Projected revenue · scale to $350B
2025 actual$13B
2026~$36B
2030 target~$350B
What it has committed to spend
>$1.15 trillion
in hardware & compute commitments (2025–35), plus ~$856B of infrastructure spend and ~$278B of cash burn through 2030. Best-case cumulative revenue over that window: ~$840B.
Underwater on its own math. Even if every optimistic forecast lands, five years of revenue don't cover what it has already promised to spend — and it only turns cash-positive, maybe, in 2029–30.
OpenAI internal docs via Fortune (Nov 2025) & FT/Bloomberg (Sep 2026); The Information
Anthropic
its own revenue forecast
Projected revenue · scale to $70B
2024~$1B
2025~$9B
2026 target$20–26B
2028 targetup to $70B
What it has committed to spend
~$80 billion
in cloud & compute commitments to AWS and Google through 2029. Cumulative operating losses to date: ~$10–15B.
Closes — on its own math. Anthropic projects ~$70B revenue and $17B of cash flow by 2028, and cash-positive as early as 2027 or 2028. Against ~$80B of commitments, its own numbers roughly balance. That's the honest difference: the crisis math is far worse for OpenAI.
Anthropic projections via The Information / TechCrunch / Sherwood (Nov 2025); valueaddvc (Aug 2026)
The catch — read this before you trust either bar
Every number above is the company's own forecast, made while raising money on it.
Independent voices doubt even these. Sequoia's David Cahn estimates the industry needs on the order of $4 trillion in lifetime revenue just to pay back the compute it's already buying, and analysts have called OpenAI's targets flatly "impossible." Believe the forecasts, and OpenAI is still underwater. Doubt them, and both are. The one thing not in dispute: the money owed is real and signed; the money to pay it back is a projection.