OpenAI targets $600B compute spend by 2030

OpenAI is reportedly telling investors it’s targeting roughly $600 billion in total compute spend through 2030. That’s a massive signal for the AI “picks and shovels” trade: chips, networking, servers, and data-centre power and cooling.

What happened

OpenAI is aiming for around $600B in compute spend by 2030 as it lays groundwork for a potential IPO, while also projecting more than $280B in revenue by 2030. The headline takeaway: demand for AI compute is still accelerating, but the market is increasingly focused on the economics of inference, margins, and who controls supply.

Why markets care

1. Compute is the bottleneck: GPUs, memory, and high-speed networking remain tight, and a spend target this large reinforces multi-year capex cycles.

2. Data  ...