GPT-5 looms as the trillion-dollar arms race accelerates
OpenAI hits a $12bn run-rate with 700m weekly users, Anthropic chases a $170bn valuation, and the capex arms race reshapes both finance metrics and the climate debate.
The past seven days saw the giants raise the stakes. OpenAI reached an estimated £9.3 billion (~$12 billion) annual run-rate by the end of July, and is set to release the much-anticipated but controversial GPT-5. Anthropic is chasing Middle Eastern investment at a $170 billion valuation, solidifying its lead in enterprise LLM usage.
GPT-5 looms
OpenAI has smashed expectations, now serving roughly 700 million weekly active users. All eyes are on GPT-5, expected in August 2025; Sam Altman expressed deep unease about its capabilities, comparing it to the Manhattan Project in potential risk and scale, as GPT-5 is set to unify multiple specialised sub-models into a fast, highly capable architecture.
Anthropic's enterprise lead
Anthropic is in talks with Qatar's sovereign wealth fund for a mega-round that would value it at around $170 billion, underscoring its rising prominence in the enterprise LLM market — by some accounts now around 32% share, overtaking OpenAI in certain corporate contexts. A notable flip in a fast-changing vendor landscape. Microsoft, meanwhile, rolled out AI-driven features in Windows 11's August update, targeted at Copilot+ PCs: an AI agent in Settings, Copilot Vision for contextual desktop suggestions, an AI-enhanced Snipping Tool, photo relighting, and Quick Machine Recovery with a redesigned 'Black Screen of Death'.
The trillion-dollar arms race
Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are pouring billions into infrastructure — £125 billion invested in 2025 so far, with forecasts heading toward $400 billion next year. This capex surge is reshaping finance metrics and environmental debates alike, even as investors stay bullish, with strong Q2 revenue growth in search, advertising and cloud.
Regulation
From 2 August the EU's voluntary 'General-Purpose AI Code of Practice' takes effect, requiring providers to document training data, conduct independent risk assessments, comply with copyright and embed security-by-design. Voluntary it may be, but non-compliance could expose firms to fines of up to 7% of global turnover — piercing what some see as soft governance. Alongside the UK's Online Safety Act, the region is positioning itself as a regulatory standard-setter, and a potential competitive drain on non-compliant firms globally.