OpenAI was founded with the mission to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. Initially, it operated as a non-profit research organization. However, a few years later, to attract capital and computing resources, it introduced a unique structure called a "capped-profit" company. This structure limits investor returns to 100x and places oversight under a non-profit board.
Recent data suggests OpenAI's revenue will surge to $12.7 billion in 2025, up from just $1.6 billion in 2023—a nearly 8-fold increase in just two years. Can it still claim to be a "capped-profit" company?
Currently, OpenAI's revenue mainly comes from user subscriptions, but services like the API, Azure OpenAI, and the GPT Store are emerging as new revenue streams.
Besides domestic competitors like Gemini, Grok, and LLaMA, OpenAI faces a rising challenge from China’s DeepSeek. Backed by the Chinese government, DeepSeek has released DeepSeek-V2 and DeepSeek-Coder and is quickly gaining access to computing power, data, and market share. In China, where OpenAI usage is limited, developers are increasingly adopting DeepSeek, especially for on-premise deployment. DeepSeek is becoming a formidable rival.
According to public data, DeepSeek's model size approaches that of GPT-3.5 and Gemini Pro. It supports both Chinese and English, excels in Chinese language processing, and is fully self-developed with high usability. Chinese tech giants like Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba are integrating DeepSeek into their products.
The future of AI might resemble a world with one superpower—like the U.S. once was—with OpenAI as the dominant force. Gemini, Grok, LLaMA, and DeepSeek represent strong contenders rising up.
So who is OpenAI's biggest challenger?
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