The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Karen Kwok

LONDON, Feb 20 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The Apollo programme, which put men on the moon, cost about $260 billion in 2020 dollar terms, according to one estimate. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman may be on track to burn through much more between now and the end of 2030, as he tries to get artificial intelligence into people's hands. It puts a seemingly imminent $100 billion fundraise into perspective, and suggests that one of Altman's biggest gambles is ongoing access to megabucks.

According to numerous media reports, OpenAI is close to clinching what would be the largest private investment round in history. The target haul is at least $100 billion, at an $830 billion post-money valuation. Nvidia NVDA.O is set to cough up $30 billion, Reuters reported, while SoftBank Group 9984.T may match that sum and Amazon.com AMZN.O could contribute $50 billion.

It would be a landmark transaction, exceeding the roughly $64 billion that OpenAI has pulled in so far in its short life. A $100 billion raise would be greater than the combined size of the three biggest private rounds ever closed, using PitchBook data. There are over 100 countries in the world with an annual GDP below $100 billion, IMF data shows, including Panama and Uruguay.

Still, it probably won't be too long until Altman is back for more. That's because of the daunting bill OpenAI faces, chiefly from the computing costs required to train and deploy cutting-edge models. HSBC analysts, in late November, estimated the resources the ChatGPT developer would require in the coming years to fund its growth. The bank estimated almost $280 billion of cash burn between now and the end of 2030.

Using the 2026 and 2027 cash flow forecasts, and factoring in the $40 billion that OpenAI's CFO recently said is on the company's balance sheet, implies that the forthcoming haul will be almost entirely spent by the end of next year. In other words, Altman's imminent mammoth funding round is nothing but a refuel.

That prompts a harder question: how many of these rounds are even possible? For now, much of the capital comes from strategic corporate backers, whose investments should ultimately cycle back to them. Nvidia, for example, will benefit from extra chip demand. Amazon gains from future cloud usage and possibly silicon demand too. These giants may effectively just be handing Altman vouchers to buy their products, and receiving OpenAI equity in return. Still, there's a limit to how exposed the giants will want to be to one company, as Microsoft's MSFT.O recent relative cooling on OpenAI funding rounds shows.

SoftBank, meanwhile, is no bottomless pit of money. Self-imposed debt ceilings limit the firepower of Masayoshi Son's Japanese investment group. That leaves public markets as a final fallback, though they're not used to coughing up tens or hundreds of billions at a time to fund growth missions.

Raising $100 billion is a triumph by any standard. And it will give Altman financial breathing room for a while. But relative to his galactic ambitions, it's ultimately just one small step.

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CONTEXT NEWS

Nvidia is close to finalising a $30 billion investment in OpenAI, Reuters reported on February 19, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The investment is part of a fundraising round in which OpenAI is seeking more than $100 billion, the same report said. That would value the ChatGPT maker at about $830 billion, including the newly raised money.

(Editing by Liam Proud; Production by Streisand Neto)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on KWOK/karen.kwok@thomsonreuters.com))