OpenAI told investors in February its compute bill would be around $600bn. A July presentation puts it at $856bn.
THE SO WHAT
An internal reset from ~$600bn to $856bn in projected compute and infra spend, even as expected free cash flow burn improves, shows how violently the capital stack is tilting toward hardware and power. If you’re planning to ride frontier models, assume your real constraint is access to subsidized compute, not just API availability.
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