OpenAI spent $3.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026 — more than half of its quarterly revenue

OpenAI spent $3.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026 — more than half of its quarterly revenue of $5.7 billion for the same period. The data is taken from documents the company provided to shareholders and reviewed by The Information.

Three times growth year over year

Revenue and expenses tripled simultaneously compared to the first quarter of 2025. This means that a year ago revenue was around $1.9 billion and expenses were around $1.2 billion. Such a growth rate is atypical even for technology leaders.

• Q1 2026 revenue: $5.7 billion — 3x year-over-year growth
• Q1 2026 expenses: $3.7 billion — 3x year-over-year growth
• Operating loss: approximately $2 billion per quarter
• Simultaneous tripling of both metrics means the gap between income and spending is not narrowing

For comparison: $5.7 billion in quarterly revenue is a level that most public technology companies reach only years after going public. OpenAI is building one of the fastest-growing businesses in history, but at the same time burning cash at the same pace.

Where such expenses come from

The main expense category is computational infrastructure. Training large language models and their operation require massive GPU clusters. The more ChatGPT and corporate API users — the higher the load on servers and the more expensive each request becomes. In parallel, OpenAI is building its own data centers as part of the Stargate project together with SoftBank and Microsoft. Announced infrastructure investments are measured in hundreds of billions of dollars. Against the backdrop of fierce competition with Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Meta, and Chinese labs, stopping R&D is impossible — otherwise market positions will be lost. Personnel costs are added: in recent quarters the company has been actively hiring specialists in model safety, agentic systems, and corporate sales.

Investors provide a buffer

In early 2026, OpenAI closed a funding round of $40 billion at a valuation of $300 billion — the largest in the history of private technology companies. This buffer allows the company to operate at a loss, betting that the market will mature to the needed margins.

"Both figures tripled year over year — a symmetry that reflects the company's unique position:

OpenAI grows faster than almost any business in history, while simultaneously burning cash at the same pace," writes The Information.

Management expects to reverse the trend through reducing the cost of requests (GPT-4o mini models are already cheaper to operate), growing high-margin corporate contracts, and monetizing agentic products — Operator and Deep Research.

What this means

OpenAI occupies a rare position: the company is simultaneously one of the fastest-growing and most expensive businesses in the history of technology. Quarterly data shows that this balance is stable for now — but only thanks to a constant inflow of investments. The race for AI leadership continues, and its cost will only grow.

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