OpenAI has become one of the most closely watched companies in the AI industry after the debut of ChatGPT in November 2022. The product pushed the company into the center of the AI boom, while also placing it in direct competition with major rivals such as Anthropic and Google.
The company now operates in a much more crowded market for large language models and AI services. That shift has raised the pressure on OpenAI to keep its lead, prove the scale of its business, and support a valuation that has drawn intense attention from investors and the public market.
A company built around heavy AI infrastructure
OpenAI’s growth depends on large-scale computing power, which includes chips, processing capacity, memory, and energy. CEO Sam Altman has said compute power is a major bottleneck for AI growth, and that view has shaped the company’s strategy.
To support that demand, OpenAI has raised huge amounts of capital. In March, the company closed a record-breaking funding round with $122 billion in committed capital from investors including Amazon, Nvidia, Softbank, Microsoft, and Andreessen Horowitz.
OpenAI said at the time that “AI is driving productivity gains, accelerating scientific discovery, and expanding what people and organizations can build.” It added that the funding would give the company “the resources to continue to lead at the scale this moment demands.”
Revenue is rising, but profit remains out of reach
The business is also under more scrutiny as the possibility of an IPO comes closer into view. OpenAI said in March that it is generating $2 billion in revenue per month, and CNBC reported that the company made $13.1 billion in revenue last year.
Even with that growth, OpenAI is not yet profitable, according to CNBC reporting. That gap matters because the company must show that its spending on infrastructure and expansion can eventually support a much larger commercial business.
The company has already started adjusting its priorities with that pressure in mind. In March, it shut down its short-form video app Sora and signaled a stronger focus on high-productivity tools, especially products aimed at enterprise customers.
Enterprise business becomes a bigger priority
OpenAI is now putting more weight on corporate adoption, which has become a key battleground in the AI market. Chief revenue officer Denise Dresser told CNBC last week that enterprise adoption is at the “tipping point,” and said OpenAI’s new Deployment Company, which includes the acquisition of Tomoro, will help the company move faster and at larger scale in enterprise deals.
That shift shows how OpenAI is trying to expand beyond consumer attention and into more durable business use cases. The enterprise market also gives the company a direct path to compete more aggressively with Anthropic, which has gained significant traction in that area.
The rivalry with Anthropic is intensifying
OpenAI’s competition with Anthropic has become one of the defining storylines in the AI sector. Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI employees, and the two companies are now racing for market share, strategic deals, and eventual public-market credibility.
The rivalry has also reached the political and regulatory level. Hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said the government would blacklist Anthropic’s technology from Department of Defense use over a disagreement about core AI safety principles, Altman announced that OpenAI had reached a deal with the DoD to deploy its models.
Altman later said he had some misgivings about moving into the DoD business so quickly. The episode showed how closely competition, policy, and AI safety debates are now tied to OpenAI’s commercial ambitions.
Pressure builds ahead of a possible public listing
OpenAI’s funding strength and revenue growth have made it one of the most valuable private technology companies in the market. PitchBook lists the company at a valuation of $852 billion and funding of $185.9 billion, reflecting the scale of investor interest around its long-term prospects.
The company’s path to the public markets still depends on proving that its high valuation can match its operating performance. That challenge has only grown as OpenAI faces a more competitive field, heavier infrastructure needs, and closer scrutiny over how it balances growth, safety, and profitability.
OpenAI has appeared on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list three times and ranks No. 2 in 2025. With Sam Altman as CEO and a founder group that includes Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, John Schulman, and Elon Musk, the company remains one of the most influential names in enterprise technology as the AI race keeps accelerating.
Read more at: www.cnbc.com