Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued that concern over whether OpenAI and Anthropic can generate enough revenue to support the AI infrastructure boom puts too much weight on two companies. 15, Huang pointed to xAI’s Grok, Meta’s Muse and Alphabet’s Gemini as other frontier products that are growing and contributing to demand for computing capacity.
The debate intensified after conflicting figures emerged for OpenAI. Investor materials indicated that its annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion at the end of September, below the roughly $70 billion figure reported weeks earlier. Annualized revenue is also a projection based on a recent period rather than a measure of completed yearly sales.
Anthropic supplied a separate test of AI demand in presentations to prospective investors. The company also said it was cash-flow positive in the quarter, although its growth rate slowed from the more than doubling recorded between the first and second quarters.
Huang’s case rests partly on the breadth of the market. He said frontier labs account for only about 25% to 35% of computing demand, leaving general-purpose computing, enterprises and other AI developers as additional buyers. New products from xAI, Meta, OpenAI and China’s Moonshot AI entered the market during the third quarter, increasing competition among model providers while potentially shifting demand rather than eliminating it.
He also linked the infrastructure build-out to slowing gains in conventional chip efficiency. Huang has said Moore’s Law no longer delivers the historical pace of computing improvements at the same cost, meaning that doubling compute increasingly requires greater spending. On that view, demand for Nvidia’s systems does not depend solely on whether OpenAI or Anthropic maintain their current growth rates; computing could continue moving toward other labs, companies and applications.
The immediate evidence remains mixed. The next clearer test will come as the companies disclose more formal financial information, including Anthropic’s expected IPO filing, which would provide greater visibility into revenue, costs and profitability.