BofA says the mega-cap hyperscalers have an OpenAI problem (www.businessinsider.com)

Bank of America warns that OpenAI’s blockbuster dealmaking—topped $1 trillion this year in commitments to cloud and compute—has created a paradox for mega-cap hyperscalers: the same companies (Microsoft, Google, AWS, Oracle among them) that are investing heavily to host OpenAI now face the company as a direct competitor. BofA’s Justin Post frames this as a two-sided strategic risk: partnerships accelerate AI scale and short-term revenue boosts, but also seed a future rival that could encroach on core business lines. Technically and economically the implications are material. If OpenAI succeeds, it could expand from models and APIs into advertising, e‑commerce commissions and “agentic” transaction platforms, with BofA estimating $41B of new product revenue by 2030 (about 8% of its ad/e‑commerce forecasts), posing a competitive threat across search, ads, retail and enterprise AI. Conversely, if OpenAI underperforms, it may underutilize contracted compute, creating excess capacity that depresses cloud revenues. Post notes current exposure is relatively contained (OpenAI under 10% of cloud revenues and <5% of AWS), but the long‑term competitive risk to Big Tech likely outweighs the modest short‑term cloud revenue upside.