There’s one thing that’s top of mind for CFOs at AI companies: computational power. As their companies race to dominate Silicon Valley – and outdo each other –OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar and Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao It focuses on raising money, securing chip deals, and tracking computing demand.
The power of calculation isHuge competitive advantage“, especially in a landscape where “there’s not a lot of computing in 2026,” Friar, 53, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV today (May 15). Securing enough capacity to meet demand is a particular challenge for OpenAI, which has more than 900 million weekly active users of ChatGPT and an enterprise sales force that is “struggled” by companies eager to adopt its models.
Before joining OpenAI, Friar was CEO of Nextdoor from 2018 to 2024 and spent six years as CFO of Square, after holding roles at Salesforce, Goldman Sachs, and McKinsey.
Anthropic, OpenAI’s primary competitor, is equally focused on securing chips. “The computing we buy is the lifeblood of our business“This is the most important thing in the company,” Rao, 43, said on an episode of the show. Invest like the best The podcast was published on May 13. He added that he spends 30 to 40 percent of his time making computing-related decisions.
Like the monk, Rao has spent about two years in his current position. He previously served as CFO of Fanatics and Cedar, after spending six years at Airbnb and previously working as a Senior Associate at Blackstone.
Both executives face a delicate balancing act: deciding how much computing to secure as their companies rapidly expand. These are “some of the most important and difficult decisions” a company can make, Rao said. Too much computing risks overspending; Too little leaves customer demand unmet. “You have to really think ahead to plan it.”
To meet their needs, both companies rely on a mix of suppliers. Anthropic primarily uses Nvidia GPUs, Google TPUs, and Amazon’s Tranium chips. OpenAI is also working with Nvidia and Amazon, with AMD chipsets integrated, internal hardware development with Broadcom and compute deployment from Cerebras Systems, which went public yesterday (May 14).
The high cost of AI infrastructure has raised huge funds. “It is a capital-intensive business,” Rao said. When he joined Anthropic, the company had closed a $750 million round at a $15 billion valuation. It is now It is reportedly seeking a $30 billion round that could value it at $900 billion– It will likely surpass OpenAI, which was valued at $852 billion in March after a $122 billion cash infusion.
OpenAI is also considering raising additional funds. While the recent twelve-digit raise “gives us a lot of options,” Friar said she is “not averse to raising more capital.”
Founded a decade ago, OpenAI has been leading the AI race for a long time. But Anthropic, launched in 2021 by former OpenAI employees, is quickly closing the gap. Its revenue run rate surpassed $30 billion in April, up from $9 billion at the end of 2025. OpenAI reported $24 billion in annual revenue as of March, although the numbers It’s not directly comparable, since OpenAI doesn’t include sales to cloud partners.
Both companies are also heading toward the public markets in what could be one of Silicon Valley’s most anticipated initial public offerings. It can be an anthropic display Arrives by the end of the yearwhile OpenAI It may come in the second half of 2026.
Although he described private markets as “very generous to us,” Fryar said public markets offer greater scale over time. “We want to be able, over the long term, to raise money across the entire spectrum — and the public markets are much larger.”
