Sarah Friar, the Chief Financial Officer of Microsoft-backed (MSFT) AI firm OpenAI, said on CNBC that even though the company is hitting big revenue goals, it’s struggling to keep up with the intense computing demands of artificial intelligence. “It is voracious right now for GPUs and for compute,” she said, while explaining why OpenAI is building massive projects like Stargate. To handle the demand and avoid supply risks, the company is working with partners like Oracle (ORCL) and CoreWeave (CRWV). Still, Microsoft remains a major partner since many of its AI products are built on OpenAI’s technology.
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Since ChatGPT launched in late 2022, OpenAI has grown fast. It expects to nearly triple its revenue this year to $12.7 billion, according to people familiar with the company. In addition, OpenAI recently announced that it has hit $10 billion in annual recurring revenue and reached its first $1 billion revenue month in July. CEO Sam Altman said that demand isn’t slowing down and that OpenAI could end up spending trillions on data centers in order to stay ahead. He believes that growth will continue and said the company is spending more aggressively than any company has ever spent before.
However, to fund this growth, OpenAI still has to rely on outside funding. Indeed, earlier this month, CNBC reported that OpenAI was in talks to sell around $6 billion in shares at a $500 billion valuation. That came after a record-breaking $40 billion funding round in March that valued the company at $300 billion. OpenAI also just launched ChatGPT-5, its most powerful model yet. And while some users praised its improved reasoning, others were upset that older models were temporarily removed, although access was quickly restored for paying users.
Is MSFT Stock a Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSFT stock based on 32 Buys and one Hold assigned in the last three months. In addition, the average MSFT price target of $624.08 per share implies 23.4% upside potential.
