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The story
A confidential presentation OpenAI showed to investors has revealed that the company expects a cumulative free cash flow (FCF) deficit of $278 billion (roughly ¥43.6 trillion) over the five years from 2026 through the end of 2030. On 5ch, the figures sparked discussion about the poor profitability of generative AI businesses, the electricity and water consumption tied to building data centers, and the differing revenue structures of rivals like Google, which has other income streams such as search and advertising.
What people said
＞A confidential presentation reveals that US-based OpenAI expects a cumulative free cash flow (FCF) deficit of $278 billion (roughly ¥43.6 trillion) over the five years from 2026 through the end of 2030
All AI runs at a loss — it needs astronomical, never-ending capital investment.
Yikes…
This isn't even a scale a regular company can handle anymore.
Unlike a normal software business, the cost ratio never comes down
I bet in a few years it'll just be a division of Microsoft
Honestly, it was always crazy that we got to use an AI that answers anything for free in the first place
Apparently they've recently hired 30,000 middle-aged guys to answer questions by hand now
And here's where it gets interesting.
AI will probably revolutionize the world, but the wall in front of it is way too high
Maybe the public even being able to use it is just a temporary thing
Just put all that revolutionary potential toward solving the energy problem instead.
But if they can't show the public a return, they can't recoup the cost
All they're really doing is using ordinary people worldwide as guinea pigs to cut down on hallucination rates
There's no other way this goes
Being able to use AI for free at all is just abnormal
Good riddance
AI tacked onto everything is annoying — just hurry up and disappear already
To avoid that, they need to update the architecture so it can match current performance with far less compute
US AI companies tried to collude on pricing and Trump shut that down, and Chinese firms are chasing them by every means possible, so raising prices is going to be tough
If a Japanese company tried a scheme like that, the US would crush it instantly.
Isn't that value just shifting over into the equipment they invested in?
Isn't the punchline going to be 'built all these data centers, and then nobody used the AI'?
Google already makes its money from ads and search, whereas OpenAI has no other way to earn
Google's AI arm is probably still bleeding huge losses too
They haven't disclosed it so we don't really know — there's no way it's profitable on its own, even if the company as a whole is
I think for businesses, the Gemini bundled into Google Workspace is going to end up with an overwhelming share
So as a business, it only really counts as a loss once it reaches that point
Which means calling today's investment spending a 'deficit' right now isn't really something to worry about
The problem is they haven't figured out how to monetize it
AI's upfront investment is on a whole different order of magnitude — honestly you'd need to pour in every dollar in the market and it still wouldn't be enough
And that's exactly why Japan got left behind
'We can't build data centers.'
Yeah, this is how you lose to China
Don't you know Chinese AI has been using distillation?
Everyone does distillation (training a smaller model on a bigger one's outputs) — even US companies do it to each other
There's no way to stop it and it's not illegal, so pointing it out doesn't accomplish anything
That's basically what happened with 19th-century railroads — most of the companies blew up, but the tracks stayed
What are you talking about, the trains are still running lol
Water especially is finite, so it's such a waste
Can't they just use seawater?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The “$278 billion cumulative deficit” cited here is a free cash flow (FCF) figure, which differs from accounting net profit/loss. FCF tends to run negative while capital spending is front-loaded, and posters in the thread noted that “the money invested is just shifting into the value of the equipment.” At the same time, the thread voiced concern over profitability, since OpenAI lacks other revenue streams like search or advertising and has little room — unlike Google or Microsoft — to offset AI investment losses with profits from other businesses. The electricity and water consumption of data centers, along with rising semiconductor prices, were also discussed as structural cost pressures facing the AI industry as a whole.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nanademo Jikkyo G) thread “OpenAI: ‘Sorry investors! We’re going to be in the red for 5 more years and need close to $300 billion in debt lol’“.
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