经济学人：一年烧掉 170 亿美元，Open AI 正在挑战商业极限

作者：经济学人        来源：一天一篇外刊             

Sam Altman is like a juggler on a unicycle. Building all-knowing chatbots powered by cutting-edge artificial-intelligence models is too meek an ambition for OpenAI’s boss. To keep his audience rapt, Mr Altman has thrown ever more balls into the air. Custom chips? Of course. E-commerce? Why not. Business consulting? Too easy. A consumer device? You betcha.

山姆·奥特曼宛如一名骑着独轮车的杂耍演员。对 OpenAI 的首席执行官来说，开发由尖端人工智能模型驱动、具备广泛知识能力的聊天机器人，已不再是足够宏大的目标。为持续吸引外界关注，他不断拓展公司的业务边界，从定制芯片到电子商务，从商业咨询延伸至消费级硬件，布局愈发多元。

At the same time, Mr Altman must keep a hand free to hold out his cap, for the show gets more expensive by the day. Leaked figures indicate that OpenAI expects to burn through $17bn of cash in 2026, up from $9bn in 2025, and that its losses will continue to pile up in each of the subsequent three years (see chart 1). It has already raised more than $60bn from investors, more than any private company ever, nearly all since ChatGPT shot the previously obscure AI lab to prominence in late-2022 (see chart 2).

与此同时，奥特曼还必须为不断攀升的成本筹措资金。泄露的数据显示，OpenAI 预计在 2026 年将耗费 170 亿美元，高于 2025 年的 90 亿美元，并且在随后三年中亏损仍将持续累积（见图 1）。迄今为止，OpenAI已从投资者处筹集逾 600 亿美元，规模超过任何一家私营企业；几乎全部资金，都是在 2022 年末 ChatGPT 的推出使这家原本并不知名的人工智能实验室迅速声名鹊起之后获得的（见图 2）

Mr Altman’s hunger for cash is far from sated. In 2026 OpenAI will “almost certainly” raise another slug of capital, says a source close to the company. It is reportedly looking for as much as $100bn, at a valuation of perhaps $830bn, up from $500bn in its latest fundraising round in October. Amazon is separately in talks to invest up to $10bn in the model-maker, which has untangled itself from an exclusive relationship with Microsoft, Amazon’s biggest rival in cloud computing. Nvidia has said it, too, may invest up to $100bn in OpenAI in $10bn increments to help it buy the chipmaker’s wares. Although he has poured cold water on the idea at various points, Mr Altman is also rumoured to be mulling a public offering.

奥特曼对资金的渴求远未得到满足。一位该公司的消息人士表示，OpenAI 几乎可以肯定,openai将在2026 年再次进行一轮大规模融资。据称，公司正寻求高达 1000 亿美元的资金，对应估值可能达到约 8300 亿美元，明显高于去年 10 月融资时约 5000 亿美元的估值。与此同时，亚马逊也在单独洽谈，计划向这家模型开发商投资至多 100 亿美元；此前，OpenAI 已摆脱与微软在云计算领域的排他性合作关系，而微软正是亚马逊在ai领域的最大竞争对手。英伟达亦表示，可能以每次 100 亿美元、合计最高 1000 亿美元的方式投资 OpenAI，以协助open ai采购自家芯片。尽管奥特曼本人曾多次对这一设想泼冷水，但市场上也传出他正在考虑推动公司上市。

More troubling still are reports that OpenAI is losing money simply by running its models, which many consumers access through the free version of ChatGPT. In November Ed Zitron, a commentator known for his AI scepticism, published leaked Microsoft figures showing that OpenAI’s so-called inference costs exceeded its revenue in the first half of 2025. To cut its losses, OpenAI could raise prices or curb access, but would run the risk of dragging down growth, particularly with competitors nipping at its heels.

更令人担忧的是，有报道称，OpenAI 仅在运行模型本身时就已处于亏损状态，而大量消费者正是通过 ChatGPT 的免费版本来使用这些模型。去年 11 月，以对人工智能持怀疑态度而闻名的评论人士埃德·齐特龙发布了泄露的微软数据，显示 OpenAI 所谓的“推理成本”在 2025 年上半年已超过其营收。为减少亏损，OpenAI 或可选择提高价格或限制使用权限，但这将面临拖累增长的风险，尤其是在竞争对手紧追不舍的情况下。

If OpenAI’s enterprise sales disappoint and it is unable to monetise ChatGPT in other ways, the company could quickly unravel. But for now, Mr Altman still has plenty of believers. “If you’d told me five years ago that Sam was going to pull these deals off, I would never have believed you. He’s better than anyone realised,” says one of his investors. The year ahead will test whether he is more than just a showman.

如果 OpenAI 的销售表现不及预期，且无法通过其他方式将 ChatGPT 变现，这家公司可能很快就会陷入失序甚至崩解。但至少在当下，奥特曼仍然拥有众多拥趸。一位投资者表示：“如果你在五年前告诉我，山姆能把这些交易一一促成，我绝不会相信。现在，他的能力远超外界此前的认知。”未来一年将检验，他究竟不只是个善于表演的角色。

作者：经济学人       来源：一天一篇外刊