Two separate analyses highlight mounting financial strain on the AI compute supply chain. Financial Times reporting shows companies supplying data centers, chips and compute to OpenAI have taken on about $96 billion of debt to fund rapid expansion. Separately, HSBC projects OpenAI will remain unprofitable through 2030 and will need an additional $207 billion in funding to meet its compute commitments. The FT breaks down debt across companies including SoftBank and CoreWeave; HSBC’s forecast factors multi‑year cloud commitments and future compute demand. For research offices, IT and finance leaders at universities, the findings underline growing risks around access to AI compute, vendor concentration, and long-term cost exposure for partnerships or campus AI initiatives. Academic procurement and sponsored-research planning should incorporate contingency and vendor‑risk assessments. (Sources: Financial Times analysis; HSBC research.)