Catenaa, Saturday, September 19, 2026- OpenAI expects that its negative free cash flow will reach $278 billion by the end of 2030, Bloomberg News reported.
The report, citing materials shared in July as part of a major computing deal, said that though the company projects its revenue will increase from $36 billion this year to $350 billion in 2030, it is investing heavily in computing power and expects expenses to vastly outpace those gains.
In an interview with Fortune, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the company’s long-anticipated IPO is still in the works but would not happen this year.
He said that the additional funding, if the AI giant takes it, would provide flexibility to potentially push back its IPO further, by one or two quarters.
Bloomberg previously reported that OpenAI has been holding early talks with investors about a fresh funding round that would value the company at more than $1.2 trillion ahead of an initial public offering.
“Another reason OpenAI could consider additional fundraising would be to support more mergers and acquisitions”, the report said.
Meanwhile, Gurufocus said that SoftBank’s push to list SB Energy at a valuation of roughly $50 billion is facing a tougher investor test due to uncertainty around OpenAI’s IPO timeline.
The report said that SB Energy is expected to seek between $5 billion and $7 billion in an IPO within the coming weeks.
SB Energy carries roughly $439 billion of contracted backlog tied largely to 8.8 gigawatts of future capacity, and roughly $357 billion of that contracted revenue is not expected to be recognized until 2034 or later.
While SB Energy generated only $138.7 million of revenue during the first half of this year, primarily from legacy solar operations. It also posted a $551.6 million operating loss.OpenAI is central to the growth thesis.
OpenAI is the primary tenant for SB Energy’s largest pipeline projects, while Nvidia has provided a $105 billion guarantee for the initial phase of an 8-gigawatt Ohio data-center campus.
Both OpenAI and Nvidia are expected to own stakes in the publicly listed company.
SB Energy has also warned that its near-term financial health and ability to finance projects depend heavily on OpenAI’s continued performance.
SB Energy estimates it needs more than $170 billion in capital spending to build its pipeline, and investors worry on how much they should pay today for revenue that may take years to materialize.
According to GuruFocus, analysts cited in the report estimate it may need another $7 billion of equity beyond IPO proceeds, in addition to substantial debt, just to maintain its typical 10% equity contribution to projects.
“That leaves SoftBank trying to sell a high-growth infrastructure story before most of the infrastructure is operational,” the report said.
A successful OpenAI IPO could have provided another valuation anchor for the broader ecosystem.
Without that, investors may scrutinize customer concentration, financing needs, and execution risk more heavily.
