AI Startup Rates OpenAI Debt as Junk in Unsolicited Credit Report

AIR Platforms, an AI-powered bond rating startup, published unsolicited credit reports scoring OpenAI's debt as "junk" (BB+) and Anthropic as investment grade (BBB). Using AI to estimate missing public data, the firm projected an EBITDA margin of negative 33.3% for OpenAI and 5.4% for Anthropic, compared to a 43.3% median for its seven-company tech benchmark. The credit models don't incorporate massive future infrastructure commitments, which include Anthropic's minimum $518B in obligations and OpenAI's forecasted $856B in data center and chip spending by the end of the decade. Frontier AI labs currently rely heavily on non-traditional financing like special-purpose vehicles and convertible debt, including a $42B convertible debt agreement between Broadcom and Anthropic for chip leases. "Joe Burdis, AIR’s co-founder and chief AI officer, says the biggest constraint is the incomplete public information available on the two companies."