Pro Weekly: Tighter Reins on Cloud Spending—Except for AI

We’ve updated our estimates for several of the biggest spenders in our Cloud Database. The changes show that some companies are trying to hold the line on cloud bills—except when it comes to spending on artificial intelligence. 

The most significant update in the database is all about AI. ChatGPT developer OpenAI projected last year that it would spend more than $1 billion on cloud computing in 2023, my colleagues Anissa Gardizy and Aaron Holmes reported earlier this week. That’s more than double our previous estimate of OpenAI’s annual cloud spending, and makes it the third-largest spender in our database, behind Apple and Snap. Those firms both split their cloud spending between Amazon Web Services and Google, but OpenAI relies exclusively on Microsoft, which has invested about $13 billion in the startup and resells much of its software. Because the $1 billion number was a projection, we estimate the company has spent at least $750 million in the past 12 months.