在2025年，风投行业向大型AI初创公司投入了1500亿美元，超过了2021年上一轮风投繁荣的受益者所获得的资金。OpenAI认为其在2026年可单独从私募投资者处筹集高达1000亿美元，约为2025年该类AI风投投入总额的三分之二，并且几乎是史上最大规模股票上市融资额的四倍。

尽管OpenAI、Anthropic等公司展现出史上最快的收入增长之一，但在芯片与云算力上的支出导致现金消耗极其惊人。随着其考虑在2026年或不久之后上市，叠加谷歌等现金充沛的巨头（其Gemini现已追上）以及ChatGPT发布三年多后生产率跃升仍未兑现，投资者对盈利路径的质询将更为尖锐。

一个关键趋势是成本至少与收入同速上升，甚至更快：与传统软件“规模越大越赚钱”相反，训练前沿模型与推理服务在规模扩张时会推高算力账单。泄露数据显示OpenAI到2030年可能累计烧钱超过1150亿美元，这迫使其在缩短答案、引入广告或提高价格等权衡中作出选择，而投资者的耐心是有限的。

In 2025, the venture-capital industry poured $150bn into big AI startups, more than beneficiaries of the previous VC boom received in 2021. OpenAI believes it can tap private investors for as much as $100bn in 2026, about two-thirds of that 2025 total and nearly four times the amount raised by the biggest stockmarket listing ever.

Even with some of the fastest revenue growth on record, OpenAI, Anthropic, and peers are burning cash rapidly because chips and cloud computing are expensive. With a possible public listing in 2026 or soon after, plus cash-rich incumbents like Google (whose Gemini has now caught up) and a still-unproven productivity surge more than three years after ChatGPT’s launch, investor scrutiny of profitability is set to intensify.

A central trend is costs rising at least as fast as, or faster than, revenues: unlike conventional software, scaling AI increases training and inference bills. Leaked figures implying OpenAI could burn more than $115bn by 2030 sharpen trade-offs among shorter answers, advertising, or higher prices, while investor patience remains finite.

Source: OpenAI’s cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026

Subtitle: There is a dark side to the model-maker’s stunning growth

Dateline: 12月 31, 2025 02:45 上午