Hua Er Jie Jian Wen·2025-11-01 03:02Core Insights - Microsoft's latest financial report unexpectedly revealed OpenAI's financial status, indicating a potential loss exceeding $11.5 billion in a single quarter, significantly surpassing market expectations and highlighting the ongoing cash burn in the AI sector [1] - The report provides a rare glimpse into the financial condition of an AI unicorn, reflecting the substantial financial burden large tech companies bear to maintain their competitive edge in AI [1][5] Financial Performance - Microsoft reported a net loss of $3.1 billion due to its equity method investment in OpenAI, which corresponds to an estimated quarterly net loss of approximately $11.5 billion for OpenAI, based on Microsoft's 27% ownership stake [1][2] - The actual loss could be even higher, with pre-tax losses reported at $4.1 billion, suggesting that OpenAI's quarterly losses might exceed $12 billion when considering a higher ownership stake of 32.5% [3] Investment Context - Despite OpenAI's significant losses, the impact on Microsoft's overall financial health is limited, as the company reported a net profit of $27.7 billion in the previous quarter, indicating its capacity to absorb such investment losses [4] - The current loss of $3.1 billion represents a dramatic increase in OpenAI's cash consumption rate compared to a loss of $523 million in the same quarter last year [5]