A report revealing that OpenAI has failed to meet internal revenue and user growth targets has sparked strong market skepticism about the return prospects of massive capital expenditures in AI infrastructure by tech giants. This led to a sharp decline in the stock prices of its key partners on Tuesday.

Growth slowdown fuels market concerns According to the report, OpenAI has missed its sales targets for several months in 2026 and failed to achieve an internal goal of 1 billion weekly active users by the end of 2025. More worryingly for investors, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has expressed concerns to management that if revenue growth is not fast enough, the company may struggle to afford its substantial computing power contract expenses in the future. This news triggered an immediate negative reaction in capital markets.

As a core investor holding approximately 11% of OpenAI, SoftBank Group saw its shares plunge by as much as 11% in Tokyo trading, marking its largest single-day drop in six months. In US pre-market trading, Microsoft and NVIDIA fell by nearly 0.5% and 1% respectively, while AMD dropped over 3%. Oracle and CoreWeave saw declines approaching 5%.

Intensifying competition and uncertain IPO prospects The report indicates that OpenAI's growth challenges are closely related to increasingly fierce market competition. Rivals like Anthropic continue to gain share in programming and enterprise markets, while other AI models including Google's Gemini are rapidly catching up, significantly eroding OpenAI's original market position.

Data shows that since the end of 2024, a basket of OpenAI-related stocks has risen about 75% cumulatively, while a group of Google-related stocks has gained over 300% during the same period. This suggests that market capital is accelerating its shift from the "OpenAI ecosystem" toward leading companies in the broader AI supply chain.

With both OpenAI and Anthropic seeking to go public as early as this year, the reported growth slowdown directly challenges their high valuations and has raised broader market doubts about the sustainability of ultra-large-scale data center investments.