Apple’s AI – OpenAI’s path to an IPO comes amid mounting losses, massive data-center commitments, and a bid for federal-backed financing. Apple, by contrast, is projected to spend about $13 billion on AI in 2026 while expected earnings from the App Store and revenue share
When OpenAI is preparing for what it says will be a major financial turning point. the numbers on the page look grim: the company has reportedly lost $1.22 for every $1 it made in revenue. In the same breath. the spending story around AI is getting louder. and the contrast with Apple is hard to miss.
OpenAI is believed to be bleeding money as it gets ready for an IPO. The company does project hitting $30 billion in revenue for all of 2026. but the scale of what it wants to build in the background is staggering: it is reported to be planning around $600 billion on servers and datacenters in the next few years. including about $100 billion on datacenter capacity.
Between now and around 2033. OpenAI has committed to $1.4 trillion in deals with processor manufacturers and cloud providers—an investment plan that isn’t meant to be funded by CEO Sam Altman personally. Instead. the company is looking for help from the federal government. specifically asking for government guarantees for financing for the processors it needs.
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar laid out the idea in November 2025. saying the company is looking for “an ecosystem of banks. private equity. maybe even governmental” partners and that ways governments can “come to bear” could help lower financing costs. Friar also said such a structure could increase the loan-to-value ratio. meaning “the amount of debt you can take on top of an equity portion.”.
Friar spoke at the same time that OpenAI denied it was planning an IPO to raise money. Now, CNBC reports the firm will file for an IPO in the next few weeks, while OpenAI continues to deny it.
Apple’s numbers sit in a very different place. FastCompany’s rundown of AI spending by major technology firms for 2026 puts it alongside giants in the tens of billions: Amazon at $200 billion. Microsoft at $190 billion. Google/Alphabet at $180 billion to $190 billion. and Meta at $125 billion to $145 billion. The missing company in that list, where the figure is estimated, is Apple—at around $13 billion for the year.
For years, Apple has been mocked for lagging behind others in AI. Yet the same reporting paints a counterweight: Apple is predicted to earn about $1 billion for “doing practically nothing,” in the form of App Store revenue and its share of sales of apps such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
ChatGPT’s presence inside Apple’s ecosystem is also where the money debate turns personal for OpenAI. OpenAI is reportedly considering suing Apple because its integration into Apple Intelligence “has not earned it enough money.” The deal at the center of that dispute is described as sending anonymized data from Apple Intelligence to ChatGPT while requiring that none of it be retained for training.
If personal details can’t be monetized for OpenAI, and if user prompts can’t even be used for training, the economics look tighter—especially for a company expecting big payoffs later.
Those future payoffs are already built into OpenAI’s own messaging. The company has previously claimed it would post gigantic losses every year until 2030. OpenAI also says that through advertising in ChatGPT it expects to generate around $100 billion in 2030.
But Apple’s steadier approach reads differently when placed next to OpenAI’s infrastructure gamble. OpenAI’s reported plan—$600 billion on servers and datacenters. $1.4 trillion in processor and cloud deals by around 2033. and a push for federally guaranteed financing—depends on massive momentum. Apple, meanwhile, appears to be leaning on distribution and platform economics rather than matching the same scale of spending.
By March 2026, OpenAI also secured $122 billion to keep operating, even as it continues to talk about multi-year losses. And at the edge of the story. there’s an almost symbolic pull: OpenAI has a Jony Ive AI device coming out. and the company’s long-terms promises keep pointing toward some future moment when the investments will finally look justified.
None of this happens in a vacuum. The AI boom has already reshaped hiring and work. The reporting notes that companies have shed workers on the belief that AI can replace them. with one Pizza Hut franchisee claiming it lost $100 million due to a botched AI kitchen management system. It also says there are signs that firms are hiring people back, but at lower salaries than before.
Put together. the facts land with a blunt contrast: Apple is projected to spend about $13 billion on AI in 2026. while OpenAI is expected to spend vastly more—hundreds of billions on infrastructure—under a plan that leans heavily on external financing and a future advertising windfall. In one world, the bill keeps arriving. In the other, the platform keeps taking its cut.
Apple AI spending OpenAI losses IPO filing data center investment AI infrastructure ChatGPT revenue share Apple Intelligence anonymized data federal financing guarantee
So Apple’s AI is “flat” but OpenAI is basically on life support? Cool cool.
I don’t get it, it says OpenAI lost $1.22 for every $1 made but they’re planning like $600 billion in servers?? That seems fake, like where’s the money coming from. Also the “federal guarantees” part sounds sketchy.
Federal-backed financing for processors… so taxpayers are gonna pay for AI chips again? That’s what it sounds like to me anyway. And the App Store thing—people act like that money just automatically shows up. I swear Apple is just trying to keep their feet dry while OpenAI burns through everything.
“App Store and revenue share” is projected like it’s gonna cover all this? Wait, so Apple gets paid more from iPhones and therefore can spend less? Seems backwards. Also $1.4 trillion in deals sounds like they’re buying futures contracts for data centers or something. Don’t even know how to read “loan-to-value ratio” but it feels like a loophole lol.