Explaining the frontier AI market to a board or investors? Get defensible numbers

Updated October 202670+ pagesPDF

Frontier AI Labs by the Numbers
Cover of NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs by the Numbers report, 2026 edition
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.
What has Anthropic promised to spend on chips? Up to about four times what it raised. Its deals for chips, cloud and data centers are worth up to about $520B over several years, against $125B of funding. 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 much money have frontier AI labs raised per employee? At Safe Superintelligence, about $160M per person, about four times OpenAI's level, for a team that could fit in one room. Most labs are between $10M and $40M. 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.
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.
Is Anthropic catching up with OpenAI in fundraising? Fast. Anthropic raised about $95B in 2026 alone and has now raised about two thirds of what OpenAI has, up from about half at the end of 2025. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.
Do frontier AI labs with more money make better models? Only up to a point. The two richest labs make the best models, but several Chinese labs come close with a small fraction of the money. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Frontier AI Labs report.

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Verified data with sourcesUpdated in October 2026