OpenAI seeks a trillion-dollar valuation, even as investors want to see the returns 

OpenAI has spent the past few years making artificial intelligence feel inevitable. Its next challenge is making the economics feel equally convincing. 

The ChatGPT maker is reportedly working to raise up to $30 billion in fresh funding at a valuation of $1.25 trillion, according to TechCrunch, citing CNBC. The proposed round would precede an anticipated public listing in 2027 and could make OpenAI the world’s most valuable privately held company.  

But there is a telling change in the numbers. According to the Financial Times, OpenAI has lowered its valuation target from $1.4 trillion after some investors pushed back against the higher price.  

A $150 billion reduction might seem inconsequential in a funding round measured in trillions. Except it isn’t. The revised target would still represent an increase of nearly 50% on OpenAI’s current $852 billion valuation, established in its March funding round. Yet the adjustment suggests that even the world’s most closely watched AI company cannot assume that investor enthusiasm will keep pace with its ambitions.  

The market is asking a harder question 

For much of the AI boom, the investment thesis has been straightforward. Build more computing capacity, train more capable models, attract more users, and find new ways to monetise them. The potential market is enormous. The companies capable of leading it, investors have reasoned, should command enormous valuations. 

That argument is now encountering a more difficult financial reality. US technology stocks have faced renewed selling pressure as investors question whether the vast sums being committed to AI infrastructure will produce returns commensurate with the spending. Data centres, advanced chips, energy, and computing capacity require capital on a scale that few technology businesses have previously needed. The infrastructure must be funded well before its eventual economic payoff becomes clear. 

The Financial Times has also reported signs of funding fatigue among investors who have already committed substantial sums to AI companies. OpenAI’s reported valuation revision reflects that changing mood: capital remains available, but investors appear increasingly unwilling to accept every price attached to the AI opportunity.  

Fifty billion dollars in revenue, and counting 

OpenAI has a powerful counterargument. Its business is growing rapidly, with annualised revenue reportedly reaching $50 billion. That is a formidable commercial achievement for a company whose mainstream breakthrough came with ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022. Revenue is coming from consumer subscriptions, enterprise adoption, and developers building products on its models.  

But revenue is only one side of the equation. OpenAI remains unprofitable, with substantial reported operating losses. Figures cited in reports put its 2025 operating losses at $20.9 billion against revenue of $13.1 billion. More recent reporting has pointed to quarterly operating losses of around $12.3 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up from $9.3 billion in the first quarter. These figures underline the scale of the costs involved in developing and operating frontier AI systems, although estimates and accounting treatments can vary across reports.  

The strategic question is how quickly revenue can grow relative to the cost of serving customers and developing the next generation of models. AI companies can attract millions of users and win major enterprise contracts while still spending heavily on the infrastructure that makes those services possible. Growth alone does not settle the question of whether the business can generate durable profits. 

Will the IPO change the conversation? 

OpenAI’s fundraising plans also need to be viewed against the approaching public-market test. A private funding round gives the company another opportunity to secure capital and support its infrastructure ambitions before opening its financial performance to a wider pool of investors. But a valuation approaching $1.25 trillion creates formidable expectations for any eventual IPO. 

Public-market investors will want more than evidence that people use AI. They will want clarity on customer retention, pricing power, gross margins, capital expenditure, and the time required to reach profitability. They will also be watching how rival Anthropic fares as it moves towards its own potential public listing, offering investors another way to assess the frontier AI market. 

For OpenAI, the next phase of competition may be fought as much in financial models as in language models. The company has demonstrated that AI can attract customers and reshape how work gets done. Now it must demonstrate that the business can support the cost of its own ambitions. 

A trillion-dollar valuation would make history. Sustaining it will require something more difficult: turning technological leadership into an economic engine that can justify the price.