HSBC warns OpenAI may stay unprofitable to 2030 amid trillion-dollar compute bills

  • The report reinforces concerns about the capital intensity of frontier AI, raising questions for cloud providers, chip suppliers and investors betting on early profitability across the AI ecosystem.
OpenAI

HSBC expects OpenAI to remain unprofitable until at least 2030, warning that the company will need an additional US$207 billion to fund its rapidly expanding compute footprint. While the bank analysts project OpenAI’s revenue could exceed US$213 billion by the end of the decade, it argues that infrastructure demands will vastly outpace cash generation.

  • HSBC estimates OpenAI’s compute commitments could swell to US$1.4 trillion by 2033.
  • Between now and 2030, the analysts model roughly US$792 billion in cloud and AI-infrastructure costs, including about US$620 billion in data-centre rentals alone.

The team, led by Nicolas Cote-Colisson, said OpenAI’s growth trajectory confronts “soaring infrastructure costs,” intensifying competition and an AI landscape that is “cash-intensive beyond any technology trend in history.”

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