What OpenAI’s $110 billion funding round says about the AI bubble

For years now, pundits and politicians have been predicting that the apparent AI bubble would soon burst. Companies have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into snazzy new data centers and absurdly well compensated research teams in hopes of building powerful, wildly profitable AI models. That’s despite the fact that even the most innovative AI companies still have modest revenues. OpenAI earned just $20B in 2025 - less than the struggling Ross department s make selling clothes, and about the same as Frito-Lay earns peddling potato chips.