OpenAI’s revenue figures fell short of earlier estimates, sending U.S. technology futures rebounding in early trading Friday while unsettling investors. The Financial Times reported annualised revenue of $20 billion (€17.8bn) below what backers had previously calculated, exposing a deeper question: has Europe’s tech sector been priced out of the AI gold rush?
The Financial Times reported that OpenAI’s annualised revenue was “approaching $50 billion (€44.6bn)” at the end of September, based on figures shared with investors—roughly $20 billion (€17.8bn) less than the company’s backers had calculated the previous month. The gap didn’t come from missed sales targets. It came from a change in accounting methods. OpenAI’s investors had recalculated using the methodology employed by rival Anthropic, which counts customer spending on AI models through cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud as revenue. OpenAI excludes those sales from its figures, creating an accounting gap that sent shockwaves through global equity markets.
The Valuation Question
The numbers were staggering. At the end of July, Anthropic had reportedly reached $65 billion in annualised revenue, making a direct comparison with OpenAI’s $50 billion figure difficult given the different accounting methods. Yet OpenAI, valued at $852 billion in March, was reportedly seeking at least $30 billion (€26.7bn) in new funding at a $1.4 trillion (€1.25tn) valuation. That gulf between OpenAI’s market value and its actual revenue raised questions about whether the AI sector was pricing in speculative growth rather than demonstrated business performance.
The market reacted swiftly and severely. The Nasdaq fell 1.25% on Thursday following the Financial Times report. Companies heavily invested in OpenAI’s infrastructure took some of the hardest hits. Oracle, which agreed to supply OpenAI with extensive computing power, fell 5.5%. CoreWeave, an AI cloud specialist with multibillion-dollar contracts with OpenAI, lost nearly 8%. Microsoft, a major OpenAI shareholder, fell more than 1%, as did Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta—four of the five hyperscalers investing hundreds of billions in AI data centres. Semiconductor manufacturers absorbed even sharper losses: Nvidia fell almost 3%, AMD dropped around 4%, and Broadcom, which is building a custom chip with OpenAI, fell 4.35%.
In Tokyo on Friday, shares in SoftBank Group, which owns about 13% of OpenAI, fell as much as 7.3% before recovering some losses. The sell-off showed that investor anxiety about AI’s path to profitability had spread beyond one company, threatening the whole ecosystem of suppliers and shareholders betting on the sector’s expansion.
Europe’s Peripheral Role
Europe’s near-total absence from the AI supply chain at the highest levels largely went unnoticed during the market panic. Samsung estimated that its third-quarter operating profit reached a record 107.4 trillion won, or $80.2 billion (€71.5bn)—potentially the largest quarterly operating profit ever reported by a technology company. Taiwan’s TSMC reported September sales up 54.6% year on year, lifting third-quarter revenue to a record NT$1.49 trillion, or $46.8 billion (€41.8bn). No European company appeared among the major AI infrastructure beneficiaries.
Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML was due to report on 14 October, and TSMC on 15 October, offering clearer pictures of the infrastructure investment supporting AI’s continued expansion. But the concentration of AI chip design, manufacturing, and cloud services in the United States and Asia underscored a strategic vulnerability for Europe: the continent’s tech sector increasingly depends on foreign platforms and suppliers for its own digital future.
What Comes Next
Potential public offerings by Anthropic as soon as November and by OpenAI in 2027 could make their audited accounts public, finally putting the AI sector’s financial claims under transparent scrutiny. Until then, the revenue confusion behind Thursday’s market turbulence will likely persist, creating uncertainty for investors and urgent questions about the sustainability of the AI boom.
Moonshot AI was reportedly considering a Hong Kong IPO in early 2027 after a $50bn valuation, further concentrating AI investment and development outside Europe’s borders. The pattern is clear: companies driving the next wave of technological change are being built, funded, and controlled by actors whose interests may not align with European labour standards, data protection, or democratic accountability.
Why This Matters:
Europe’s tech sector faces a structural problem no single national government can solve. The AI boom is concentrating wealth and innovation in a handful of U.S. and Asian companies, while European firms struggle to compete at the highest levels of the value chain. The EU has invested significant political capital in regulating AI through the AI Act, but regulation without competitive capacity is hollow. If European companies can’t build the foundational models, control the infrastructure, or capture the revenue streams from AI adoption, the continent risks becoming a market for foreign technology rather than a creator of it.
This isn’t merely an economic issue—it’s a democratic one. When tools that will shape Europe’s future are designed, owned, and operated by entities outside European governance, Europe’s ability to protect its citizens’ interests diminishes. The OpenAI revenue confusion exposed the fragility of investor confidence in the AI sector. It also exposed Europe’s fragility in the AI age. Individual EU member states can’t compete with U.S. tech giants or Asian manufacturers. Only a coordinated European strategy—combining investment in foundational AI research, support for European-scale startups, and critical infrastructure ownership—can change this trajectory. The weeks ahead, as major AI companies report earnings and pursue public listings, will clarify where the next trillion euros of value will be created. Without urgent action, that value will be created elsewhere.