BNP Paribas' equity research department indicates that OpenAI's revised capital expenditure plan for its artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure is a positive development for hyperscale cloud providers Microsoft (MSFT.US) and Oracle (ORCL.US). Reports suggest OpenAI intends to invest a total of $600 billion in computing power by 2030. This update follows OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's statement from October last year, where he outlined the company's ambition to invest up to $1.4 trillion in infrastructure by 2033.

According to BNP Paribas analyst Stefan Slowinski in an investor note, "In our view, these revisions do not necessarily reflect increased caution at OpenAI. Instead, the updated forecast is broadly consistent with the previously announced $1.4 trillion infrastructure commitment by 2033, with capital expenditure still heavily weighted beyond 2030. Considering OpenAI might plan annual compute investments exceeding $200 billion by 2030, our rough calculations suggest the initially proposed $1.4 trillion scale remains achievable."

BNP Paribas believes this update generally paints a positive outlook for Microsoft, OpenAI's primary backer, and Oracle, a key infrastructure partner. Stefan Slowinski noted, "With a clearer cash burn outlook and OpenAI's over $100 billion financing round nearing completion (potentially requiring another approximately $80 billion thereafter to reach free cash flow breakeven), we believe this reduces OpenAI-related counterparty risk for Microsoft and Oracle in the near term."

"OpenAI's updated revenue expectations," Slowinski added, "which target $280 billion by 2030 (an increase from the previous $200 billion upper range, primarily driven by enterprise business), also imply that if OpenAI achieves its targets, Microsoft could secure an additional $12 billion in revenue share by fiscal year 2030 (4% above consensus estimates)."

However, the analyst pointed out that while OpenAI also plans a significant near-term increase in its compute budget, whether Microsoft and Oracle will directly benefit from this specific incremental spending remains unclear, particularly given reports of Amazon's (AMZN.US) involvement in the current funding round.