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Are OpenAI and Anthropic losing money on inference?

(martinalderson.com)
507 points martinald | 2 comments | 28 Aug 25 10:15 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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sc68cal ◴[28 Aug 25 15:12 UTC] No.45053212[source]▶
This whole article is built off using DeepSeek R1, which is a huge premise that I don't think is correct. DeepSeek is much more efficient and I don't think it's a valid way to estimate what OpenAI and Anthropic's costs are.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/deep-impact/

Basically, DeepSeek is _very_ efficient at inference, and that was the whole reason why it shook the industry when it was released.

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phillipcarter ◴[28 Aug 25 15:30 UTC] No.45053455[source]▶
Uhhh, I'm pretty sure DeepSeek shook the industry because of a 14x reduction in training cost, not inference cost.

We also don't know the per-token cost for OpenAI and Anthropic models, but I would be highly surprised if it was significantly more expensive than open models anyone can use and run themselves. It's not like they're also not investing in inference research.

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1. baxtr ◴[28 Aug 25 16:05 UTC] No.45053879[source]▶
Because of the alleged reduction in training costs.
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2. basilgohar ◴[28 Aug 25 16:14 UTC] No.45053970[source]▶
All reports by companies are alleged until verified by other, more trustworthy sources. I don't think it's especially notable that it's alleged because it's DeepSeek vs. the alleged numbers from other companies.