**Clarifying OpenAI’s Position on Government Guarantees and Infrastructure Investment**

There have been some understandable questions about our approach to infrastructure investment and OpenAI’s relationship with government support. We’d like to clarify a few important points.

**No Government Guarantees for OpenAI Datacenters**

First and foremost: We neither have nor want government guarantees for OpenAI datacenters. We firmly believe that governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out companies that make poor business decisions or fail in the market. If one company fails, others will step up to continue important work. The ecosystem—and healthy competition—are what drive progress.

**Government-Owned AI Infrastructure: A Different Approach**

What could make sense is for governments to build and own their own AI infrastructure. In these cases, the upside of such investments should benefit the government and, by extension, the public. For example, governments might opt to offtake large amounts of computing power, gaining flexibility in deciding how to use it. This could justify a lower cost of capital for such projects.

Building a strategic national reserve of computing power is logical and serves national interests, but this should be for the government’s benefit, not for the benefit of private companies.

**Semiconductor Fabs and Loan Guarantees**

The only area where we have discussed loan guarantees is in support of building semiconductor fabs in the US. Here, OpenAI and other companies have responded to the government’s call by helping re-establish an American-based chip supply chain. While we did not formally apply, we would be glad to assist in efforts aimed at bringing jobs and industrialization back to the US and enhancing America’s strategic independence in this sector.

This context is quite different from guaranteeing datacenter buildouts that directly benefit private companies.

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### Addressing Key Concerns

There are at least three underlying questions that are understandably on people’s minds.

#### 1. **How Will OpenAI Pay for All This Infrastructure?**

We expect to end this year with an annualized revenue run rate above $20 billion, and we aim to grow that to hundreds of billions by 2030. We’re considering infrastructure commitments totaling about $1.4 trillion over the next eight years. Achieving these goals requires continued strong revenue growth—each doubling is a significant challenge!

We are optimistic about our upcoming enterprise offerings and expect significant developments in new categories, such as consumer devices and robotics. Additionally, we’re exploring ways to sell compute capacity directly—a world in need of vast “AI cloud” resources will require it.

In the future, we might raise more capital (through equity or debt), but all trends suggest global demand for computing power will exceed even our ambitious buildout plans.

#### 2. **Is OpenAI Trying to Become Too Big to Fail? Should the Government Pick Winners and Losers?**

Our answer is an unequivocal no. If we make mistakes and cannot recover, we should fail—and others will take up the mantle. That’s how capitalism works, and the overall ecosystem and economy will continue to thrive.

Our Chief Financial Officer referenced government financing recently, later clarifying her comments. We emphasize that while the US needs a national strategy for its own AI infrastructure, this is distinct from propping up individual companies.

On the topic of government as an insurer of last resort, this was discussed in a very specific context: catastrophic risks (such as a rogue AI being used to coordinate large-scale cyberattacks). In such cases, only governments have the scale to respond, but this is not about insuring companies for business risk or datacenter projects.

We do not believe governments should write insurance policies for AI companies.

#### 3. **Why Spend So Much Now Instead of Growing More Slowly?**

We are building the infrastructure for a future economy powered by AI. Given our research and industry trends, now is the right time to scale up technology. Massive infrastructure projects take years to complete, and current demand already exceeds available compute resources—meaning we must continuously rate limit products and hold back new features.

If AI can drive important scientific breakthroughs but requires immense computing power, we want to be ready for that moment—which we believe is approaching much sooner than previously thought.

Our mission compels us not to delay applying AI to urgent problems, such as contributing to the cure of deadly diseases, and to bring the benefits of AGI to people as soon as possible.

We envision a world of abundant, affordable, and transformative AI technology—a world in which massive demand improves lives in countless ways.

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### Our Commitments Moving Forward

It is a privilege to be developing infrastructure on such a scale for such an important purpose. This is the bet we’re making, based on our perspective and research. But if we’re wrong, the market—not the government—will correct the course.

We remain committed to transparency and continued dialogue as we move forward in this rapidly evolving field.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/146718/openai-ceo-sam-altman-government-ai