Building or backing a frontier AI lab? See how the money is really made

Updated October 202670+ pagesPDF

Frontier AI Labs Business Models
Cover of NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs Business Models report, 2026 edition
OpenAI or Anthropic: who is closer to making a profit? Anthropic, by its own figures. It sells about $67B a year at its latest pace and says it made an adjusted profit last quarter. OpenAI sells almost $50B and forecasts about $280B of cash burn to 2030. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.
How expensive are frontier AI labs, measured by their sales? Not the two leaders. At their latest sales pace, OpenAI and Anthropic are worth 14 to 17 times their yearly sales, like big tech. Smaller labs such as Mistral, DeepSeek and Zhipu are priced 30 to 150 times theirs. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.
Are Chinese AI models much cheaper than American ones? At the very top, yes: the best US models cost 10 to 40 times more than DeepSeek, GLM or MiniMax. Against everyday US models, the gap is much smaller. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.
How many years of sales would match what frontier AI labs raised? About two years for Anthropic and four for OpenAI, at today's sales pace. Most other labs would need five to 17 years, and Safe Superintelligence has no sales yet. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.
Who is really ahead in China’s AI race, DeepSeek or Moonshot? Neck and neck. Both sell about $1B a year and are valued at $50B or more. Moonshot has the better-voted model and an IPO filing, DeepSeek is 4 times cheaper and is closing a ~$12B round. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.
Who is fighting whom in frontier AI? OpenAI leads Google on users, Anthropic leads OpenAI on sales, and Alibaba leads DeepSeek on downloads. Alibaba and Kling split video, SSI and Thinking Machines split money and product. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.
Do chip and cloud giants fund the labs that buy from them? Yes. Amazon, Microsoft and Google put tens of billions into OpenAI and Anthropic, which in turn promised them far more in cloud spending, in deals worth up to hundreds of billions. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.
Who is really ahead in frontier AI, OpenAI or Anthropic? Anthropic, on 4 lines of 6. It sold $16.8B in its third quarter, about $67B a year against ~$50B for OpenAI, and has the top-rated model. OpenAI keeps the crowd, with 1 billion monthly users, and the bigger war chest. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.
Which frontier AI labs raised a fortune with no product? Safe Superintelligence leads, with about $8B and still nothing customers can use. Several other labs raised hundreds of millions, some over $1B, with no product on the market yet. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.

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  • Which business models are winning
  • Who pays, and how much
  • Who makes money, who burns cash
  • What it costs to train and run
  • Who are the top companies today
  • Who’s ahead, and who’s falling behind
  • What are their valuations
  • Who’s getting funded, and by whom
  • What are the biggest unsolved problems
  • What has changed in the last 12 months
  • Where are the biggest opportunities
  • Who are the likely future winners
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Verified data with sourcesUpdated in October 2026