OpenAI's Massive Losses Strengthen the Bull Case for These 2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks
These two companies remain among the best picks to cash in on AI.
By Prosper Junior Bakiny
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is racing toward an IPO later this year. No doubt many retail investors are anxiously waiting to get a piece of the company that started the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom. ChatGPT's launch was arguably the main catalyst, and since introducing it to the public more than three years ago, OpenAI has remained very active and very popular. However, the company's financials were recently leaked, prompting some otherwise enthusiastic investors to rethink their positions. OpenAI reported a $20.92 billion loss from operations in 2025, far worse than the $8.78 billion it recorded in 2024.
What's more, the company posted only $13.07 billion in revenue in 2025, up 253% year over year. OpenAI is spending a lot of money to stay at the forefront of generative AI, and some of that money is flowing into other companies' pockets. Two corporations that may be benefiting from this are Nvidia (NVDA +3.08%) and Microsoft (MSFT +0.19%). Here is why investors should be even more confident in these tech leaders' prospects now.
Training and running frontier AI models is expensive. OpenAI is one of the leading companies doing so, and to stay ahead of the competitors, it has to invest in the hardware and infrastructure necessary to support advanced AI models. That includes AI chips. That's where Nvidia comes into play. The company's GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) are the workhorses of AI training and have arguably become the defining hardware of the AI revolution. It would be surprising if OpenAI weren't relying on Nvidia's chips. And for what it's worth, we don't need to guess that the company is doing just that.
OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, told us so himself. In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Altman said: "We love working with Nvidia and they make the best AI chips in the world. We hope to be a gigantic customer for a very long time." These comments came in response to claims that OpenAI was not satisfied with some of Nvidia's newest chips and was seeking alternatives.
Here's an even more important point: OpenAI is likely not an outlier here. The company is spending a lot of money because it needs to, and if it is, then its competitors are doing the same. In other words, OpenAI's massive spending is symptomatic of the industry's economics, and as long as these AI leaders continue to battle it out for the best models, some of the money they invest will flow right into Nvidia's pockets. That's great news for the company, and it highlights, once again, that Nvidia can still ride the AI tailwind for a long time, especially given its wide moat stemming from its sticky CUDA ecosystem that will make it very difficult for competitors to gain significant market share. In short, Nvidia's shares remain very attractive to long-term investors looking to capitalize on AI.
2. Microsoft
Some may argue that since Microsoft owns shares of OpenAI, the latter's significant losses aren't good for the former. However, Microsoft has been OpenAI's main cloud partner for years, and it remains so. ChatGPT runs on Microsoft's Azure along with other cloud platforms. True, OpenAI has contracted billions of dollars in cloud infrastructure from other providers like Amazon Web Services. It was important for the company to diversify away from Microsoft. But the partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft reveals at least two things about Microsoft. First, Microsoft doesn't need OpenAI to be profitable to benefit from the AI boom. OpenAI spending money on AI infrastructure has been good for Microsoft.
Second, it also highlights that Microsoft remains one of the leaders in cloud computing and can continue attracting business from companies like OpenAI. Some leaders in this niche are deeply tied to competing cloud providers. For instance, Anthropic has worked closely with Amazon. Microsoft isn't as dominant in the cloud as Nvidia is in the GPU market, so it may not be the main one cashing in on increasing demand for cloud services as OpenAI and its peers continue to battle it out. But Microsoft should still get a decent slice of the pie. This suggests that the company's cloud business could continue to post strong revenue growth for the foreseeable future. Microsoft's shares are down significantly this year, but there are multiple reasons to remain bullish on the stock, and its strong position in the cloud market is just one of them.