Anthropic set to become profitable before OpenAI amid AI race

Investing.com -- Silicon Valley’s leading AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI are pursuing far different financial strategies, with Anthropic projected to achieve profitability two years earlier than its larger rival, according to financial documents cited late Monday by the Wall Street Journal.

Anthropic, known for its Claude chatbot’s strong coding and business applications, forecasts breaking even by 2028. Meanwhile, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, projects operating losses of approximately $74 billion that same year, representing about 75% of its revenue due to escalating computing expenses.

The financial roadmaps, shared with investors during the summer, reveal OpenAI expects to consume roughly fourteen times more cash than Anthropic before reaching profitability in 2030.

For 2025, both companies project similar cash burn rates relative to revenue - OpenAI anticipates burning $9 billion on $13 billion in sales, while Anthropic expects to use almost $3 billion against $4.2 billion in revenue, both representing about 70% of their respective sales.

The efficiency gap widens significantly in subsequent years. By 2026, Anthropic projects reducing its cash burn to approximately one-third of revenue, compared to OpenAI’s 57%. By 2027, Anthropic’s burn rate is expected to drop further to just 9% of revenue, while OpenAI’s remains unchanged.

Anthropic’s more conservative approach focuses on growing corporate customers, who currently generate about 80% of its revenue. The company has avoided OpenAI’s costly investments in image and video generation technologies that require substantial computing resources.

OpenAI’s financial outlook may become even more challenging following recent computing agreements with cloud and chip companies. CEO Sam Altman stated on X that these deals commit the company to up to $1.4 trillion in spending over the next eight years, raising concerns among investors about the company’s ability to meet these financial obligations.