OpenAI Burned $3.7 Billion in Q1: Revenue Surged to $5.7 Billion, Holding Over $73 Billion in Cash

According to the latest Beating Analytics report, OpenAI saw a cash outflow of $37 billion in Q1 2026, accounting for over 60% of the quarter's $57 billion revenue. Financial disclosures to shareholders revealed that both revenue and burn rate for Q1 tripled compared to the same period last year. The end-of-quarter cash and marketable securities holdings surged from $400 billion at the end of last December to over $730 billion.

The financial statements indicate a net loss of over $21.3 billion in Q1, with the loss primarily impacted by a non-cash accounting adjustment equivalent to nearly $12.4 billion (mainly related to changes in the fair value of convertible equity and stock warrants liabilities). Excluding the accounting impact, the operational loss for Q1 was $9.3 billion, including $2.3 billion in employee stock-based compensation expenses. R&D expenses for the same period amounted to $8.6 billion.

On the revenue cost side, the Q1 expenditure primarily allocated to providing model services was $3.5 billion, with the gross margin increasing from 33% in the same period last year to 39%. However, a significant implicit expense lies in the compute power agreements. The disclosed data for Q1 revealed that as of the end of 2025, commitments for cloud compute purchases amounted to as much as $665 billion, with purchase contracts set to run until 2030. Last week, OpenAI secretly filed for an initial public offering.