On November 28, according to the Financial Times,OpenAI's data center partners are about to take on nearly $100 billion in debt, these loans are related to OpenAI, which is losing money. Right now, OpenAI is benefiting from a debt-fueled spending spree.without taking any financial risks.

According to an analysis by the Financial Times, SoftBank, Oracle and CoreWeave have borrowed at least US$30 billion to invest in OpenAI or help it build data centers. Computing infrastructure companies such as investment group Blue Owl Capital and Crusoe also rely on deals with OpenAI to repay about $28 billion in loans.

A group of banks are negotiating to provide an additional $38 billion in loans to Oracle and data center builder Vantage to build more data centers for OpenAI, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal is expected to close in the coming weeks.

OpenAI executives have said they plan to borrow heavily to help pay for these contracts, but so far the financial burden has fallen primarily on its partners and their lenders."This has always been our strategy," said one OpenAI executive. "That is to try to leverage other companies' balance sheets."


Debt borne by OpenAI partners

The scale of the loans that rely on OpenAI will bring further scrutiny to the $1.4 trillion worth of contracts the company signed this year. The contracts cover the purchase of computing resources from chip manufacturers and data center companies over the next eight years. Such a huge contract amount far exceeds the US$20 billion in annual revenue OpenAI is expected to achieve this year.

OpenAI has almost no debt on its own balance sheet, according to people familiar with the matter. Although OpenAI received a $4 billion credit line from multiple U.S. banks last year, the company has yet to draw on the funds.

OpenAI said: “Building AI infrastructure is the most important thing we can do to meet surging global demand, and the current shortage of computing power is the biggest bottleneck limiting OpenAI’s growth.”

As of press time, SoftBank, Vantage, CoreWeave, Crusoe and Blue Owl have declined to comment. Oracle did not respond.