OpenAI expects business to burn $115 billion through 2029, The Information reports

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(Reuters) -OpenAI has sharply raised its projected cash burn through 2029 to $115 billion as it ramps up spending to power the artificial intelligence behind its popular ChatGPT chatbot, The Information reported on Friday.

The new forecast is $80 billion higher than the company previously expected, the news outlet said, without citing a source for the report.

OpenAI, which has become one of the world’s biggest renters of cloud servers, projects it will burn more than $8 billion this year, some $1.5 billion higher than its projection from earlier this year, the report said.

The company did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

To control its soaring costs, OpenAI will seek to develop its own data center server chips and facilities to power its technology, The Information said.

OpenAI is set to produce its first artificial intelligence chip next year in partnership with U.S. semiconductor giant Broadcom, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, saying OpenAI plans to use the chip internally rather than make it available to customers.

The company deepened its tie-up with Oracle in July with a planned 4.5-gigawatts of data center capacity, building on its Stargate initiative, a project of up to $500 billion and 10 gigawatts that includes Japanese technology investor SoftBank Group. OpenAI has also added Google Cloud among its suppliers for computing capacity.

The company’s cash burn will more than double to more than $17 billion next year, $10 billion higher than OpenAI’s earlier projection, with a burn of $35 billion in 2027 and $45 billion in 2028, The Information said.

(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard)