OpenAI raises compute spending target to $750B by 2030

OpenAI has increased its projected spending on computing infrastructure to approximately $750 billion through 2030, up from an earlier estimate of roughly $600 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 0.67%. The revised figure reflects the artificial intelligence company's accelerating demand for data-center capacity as it prepares for a potential initial public offering.wsj

A Growing Infrastructure Empire

The spending increase comes alongside OpenAI's announcement of a $20 billion data-center project in Effingham County, Georgia, near Savannah, where it has secured 3.2 gigawatts of power from Georgia Power Southern Company ↗ 1.75%. The company also hired an architect of Elon Musk's computing build-out to help manage its sprawling infrastructure plans.The Atlanta Journal-Constitution+2

OpenAI already has several of the largest cloud contracts in the industry. Its partnership with Oracle ↘ 1.61% covers 4.5 gigawatts of data-center capacity through the Stargate initiative, a deal Bloomberg reported is worth roughly $30 billion annually. In February, OpenAI and Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. ↘ 1.80% expanded their existing $38 billion agreement by $100 billion over eight years, bringing the total AWS commitment to $138 billion. The company also committed $250 billion in cloud consumption to Microsoft ↘ 2.35% Azure as part of a restructured partnership announced in October 2025.GeekWire+6

From $30 Million to $50 Billion

The scale of OpenAI's spending trajectory was laid bare during its courtroom battle with Elon Musk earlier this year. President Greg Brockman testified in May that OpenAI expects to spend $50 billion on computing power in 2026 alone, a figure that has risen from approximately $30 million in 2017.Reuters+2

In February, OpenAI told investors it was targeting $600 billion in total compute spend by 2030, a deliberate step down from the $1.4 trillion in infrastructure commitments CEO Sam Altman had previously cited. The jump to $750 billion suggests the company's appetite for capacity is once again outpacing its earlier projections, even as it reported missed revenue and user-growth targets earlier this year.reuters+3

Financing the Ambition

OpenAI closed a $122 billion funding round in March — the largest in Silicon Valley history — at a valuation of $852 billion, with backing from Amazon, NVIDIA ↗ 3.10%, and SoftBank. The company has acknowledged it expects to burn through that capital within three years to fund its computing contracts. Whether revenue can keep pace remains the central tension as OpenAI moves toward its public listing.nypost+1