OpenAI’s Head of Compute Infrastructure, Sachin Katti, dropped a blunt assessment during a recent podcast: demand for computing power in the AI sector is vastly outpacing supply, and every new unit of capacity gets consumed the moment it comes online. His warning carries a particularly uncomfortable corollary. Slowing down the expansion of capacity doesn’t just delay progress. It actively makes the shortage worse.
The numbers behind the crunch
OpenAI’s available compute power sat at 0.2 GW in 2023. By 2024, that figure tripled to 0.6 GW. The target for 2025 is approximately 1.9 GW, which would represent another roughly 3x jump in a single year.
OpenAI is spending around $50 billion annually on compute resources, primarily through its partnership with Microsoft. The exponential growth isn’t coming from one place, either. It’s the compounding effect of more users, more AI agents, and more always-on applications all demanding inference simultaneously.
OpenAI isn’t alone in sounding the alarm
