OpenAI Confidential IPO File Leaked: $665 Billion Off-Balance Sheet Commitments Underpinning the "Asset-Light" Narrative

According to Beating Insight monitoring, The Information has exclusively obtained and reviewed the confidential IPO registration statement draft submitted by OpenAI. The detailed financial footnotes of the prospectus show that as of March 31, 2026, OpenAI's balance sheet closely resembles that of a light-asset software company, with virtually no debt on its books, lease liabilities of less than $750 million, and quarterly capital expenditures of only $46 million (even lower than enterprise software provider Salesforce). However, in reality, OpenAI has kept its extensive infrastructure spending off the books, with future commitments for chips, energy, and data center purchases totaling up to $665 billion. The actual net loss for the first quarter remains high at approximately $8.5 billion (excluding the skyrocketing stock-based non-cash expenses due to valuation surge), with quarterly revenue costs amounting to $3.5 billion, 75 times the capital expenditure.

OpenAI exhibits a highly circular funding characteristic. In the first quarter, 72% of OpenAI's revenue costs and 45% of total expenses were paid to related parties (mostly or likely to be Microsoft). During the same period, OpenAI received $758 million in revenue from related parties (12 times higher than the same period last year) and settled the computing bill directly with $488 million worth of equity, all without using cash.

The substantial off-balance sheet procurement commitments and intricate on-balance sheet joint venture structures further complicate the financial transparency of OpenAI. The income statement indicates that nearly $5 billion of losses in the first quarter in the data center joint venture projects controlled and consolidated by OpenAI (highly likely related to the Stargate project in collaboration with SoftBank and Oracle) were attributed to external partners on the accounting books. Similarly expanding off the balance sheet is the competitor Anthropic. Documents reveal that Anthropic has committed to paying $45 billion to data center service provider Fluidstack in the coming years and has Broadcom, a chip supplier, providing payment guarantees for a $350 billion chip order leased by Anthropic from Google.