OpenAI’s Spending Reportedly Hit $34 Billion in 2025 as AI Race Intensified

OpenAI’s net loss widened sharply last year as the ChatGPT maker accelerated spending on research, sales and infrastructure ahead of a potential public listing, according to the Financial Times.

The San Francisco-based company spent about $34 billion in 2025, including roughly $19 billion on research and development and nearly $6 billion on sales and marketing, the FT reported, citing audited financial figures confirmed by people familiar with the matter. The figures were first shared with the newspaper by independent journalist Ed Zitron.

The spending offers a rare look into the economics behind one of the most closely watched companies in the artificial intelligence boom, where surging demand for generative AI products has been matched by extraordinary costs for model training, computing capacity, data centers and talent.

OpenAI generated about $13 billion in revenue last year, according to the report. By the end of 2025, it was producing about $2 billion in monthly revenue, compared with $1 billion per quarter at the end of 2024, putting it among the fastest-growing technology companies by revenue.

Still, the company’s costs rose faster. Net loss attributable to OpenAI increased nearly eightfold to about $39 billion in 2025 from $5 billion a year earlier, the FT reported. A person familiar with the matter told the newspaper that most of the increase came from a non-cash accounting charge tied to OpenAI’s former corporate structure, rather than its underlying operating performance.

Before restructuring late last year as a public benefit corporation, OpenAI investors held convertible interest rights instead of conventional equity. Under U.S. accounting rules, those rights were treated as liabilities and revalued as the company’s valuation rose. That created a roughly $30 billion accounting charge, according to the report. The charge is not expected to recur after the restructuring.

Excluding that charge and other non-cash items, including stock-based compensation and Microsoft computing credits, OpenAI’s loss was about $8 billion, the FT reported.

The financials underscore the central tension facing the AI sector: revenue is growing rapidly, but the capital required to compete at the frontier of model development is also rising. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and xAI are competing to secure chips, data center capacity, energy supplies and engineering talent, creating a funding race that has pushed private-market valuations to unprecedented levels.

OpenAI has so far relied on private investors to underwrite that expansion. The company raised $122 billion earlier this year at a valuation of $730 billion, excluding the new investment, according to the FT. It is preparing for a potential stock market listing that could value the company at more than $1 trillion.

The reported financials come as OpenAI is positioning itself for public markets. The company confidentially filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering earlier this month. Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman has said the filing gives OpenAI the option to access public markets, while leaving open the possibility that the company remains private.

Some senior OpenAI executives and investors expect a flotation as soon as this autumn, the newspaper reported. The process could put OpenAI in a race with Anthropic, which also filed paperwork this month after raising $65 billion at a $900 billion valuation, making it more valuable than OpenAI on that basis.

OpenAI’s spending push has also led to internal prioritization. Altman last year urged staff to focus on improving ChatGPT as the company sought to capture demand from consumers and businesses, according to the FT. The company later shelved several more costly “side quests,” including its video generation tool Sora.