Notably, the trend in the last few years is that AI companies triple their revenue each year
Hm, I admittedly only skimmed the Compute Forecast article, but I don’t think there’s much evidence for a trend like this? The “triples every year” statement seems to be extrapolated from two data points about OpenAI specifically (“We use OpenAI’s 2023 revenue of $1B and 2024 revenue around $4B to to piece together a short term trend that we expect to slow down gradually”, plus maybe this). I guess you can draw a straight line through two points, and the idea of this trend following straight lines doesn’t necessarily seem unconvincing a-priori… But is there more data?
50% algorithmic progress
Yeah, I concur with all of that: some doubts about 50% in April 2026, some doubts about 13% today, but seems overall not implausible.
I think the best source for revenue growth is this post from epoch. I think we only have the last 2 years really, (so “last few years” is maybe overstating it), but we do have revenue projections and we have more than 1 data point per year.
Also see FutureSearch’s report on a plausible breakdown for how OpenBrain hits $100B ARR by mid-2027.
I think if you condition on the capability progression in the scenario and look at existing subscription services generating in the $100B range, it feels very plausible intuitively, independently from the ‘tripling’ extrapolation.
Hm, I admittedly only skimmed the Compute Forecast article, but I don’t think there’s much evidence for a trend like this? The “triples every year” statement seems to be extrapolated from two data points about OpenAI specifically (“We use OpenAI’s 2023 revenue of $1B and 2024 revenue around $4B to to piece together a short term trend that we expect to slow down gradually”, plus maybe this). I guess you can draw a straight line through two points, and the idea of this trend following straight lines doesn’t necessarily seem unconvincing a-priori… But is there more data?
Yeah, I concur with all of that: some doubts about 50% in April 2026, some doubts about 13% today, but seems overall not implausible.
I think the best source for revenue growth is this post from epoch. I think we only have the last 2 years really, (so “last few years” is maybe overstating it), but we do have revenue projections and we have more than 1 data point per year.
Also see FutureSearch’s report on a plausible breakdown for how OpenBrain hits $100B ARR by mid-2027.
I think if you condition on the capability progression in the scenario and look at existing subscription services generating in the $100B range, it feels very plausible intuitively, independently from the ‘tripling’ extrapolation.