OpenAI Misses Multiple Growth Targets, CFO Warns of Potential $600 Billion Computing Bill Inability to Pay

According to monitoring by Dongcha Beating and an exclusive report by the WSJ, OpenAI has recently failed to meet several internal growth targets. CFO Sarah Friar warned management that if revenue growth does not keep pace, the company may be unable to pay for future computing contracts. The board has also begun reviewing data center investments in recent months, questioning CEO Altman’s approach of continuing to expand computing capacity on a large scale amid a slowdown in business. Specifically, ChatGPT did not reach its internal target of 1 billion weekly active users by the end of last year, and this figure has yet to be disclosed; the latest weekly active user data reported by AP on April 16 was ‘over 900 million.’ The annual revenue target for ChatGPT was also not met, as Google’s Gemini rapidly gained market share at the end of last year. Earlier this year, OpenAI faced further encroachment in the programming and enterprise markets from Anthropic, resulting in several months of revenue shortfalls. The churn rate of subscription users has also been a headache for the company. Altman signed a computing procurement commitment of approximately $600 billion last year. The company recently completed a $122 billion financing round, the largest single round in Silicon Valley history, but according to internal forecasts, even if revenue targets are met, this money would only be sufficient for three years, with some funds also being conditional. Friar has expressed reservations about an IPO before the end of the year, believing that the company’s internal control systems have not yet reached the standards of a public company; Altman, on the other hand, is inclined to push for a quicker IPO. The two issued a joint statement through the WSJ denying any disagreement, stating they are ‘completely aligned’ on ‘buying as much computing power as possible,’ and calling the notion of reducing computing capacity ‘absurd.’ The company’s second-in-command, Fidji Simo, unexpectedly took medical leave earlier this month, leaving a vacancy in the leadership.