alt Hacker NewsConsensus seems to be that the labs are profitable on inference. They are only losing money on training and free users.
The competition requiring them to spend that money on training and free users does complicate things. But when you just look at it from an inference perspective, looking at these data centres like token factories makes sense. I would definitely pay more to get faster inference of Opus 4.5, for example.
This is also not wholly dissimilar to other industries where companies spend heavily on R&D while running profitable manufacturing. Pharma semiconductors, and hardware companies like Samsung or Apple all do this. The unusual part with AI labs is the ratio and the uncertainty, but that's a difference of degree, not kind.
> But when you just look at it from an inference perspective, looking at these data centres like token factories makes sense.
So if you ignore the majority of the costs, then it makes sense.
Opus 4.5 was released on November 25, 2025. That is less than 2 months ago. When they stop training new models, then we can forget about training costs.