OpenAI quits Sora, citing $1 M daily cost and low users
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- OpenAI shut down Sora, its AI video‑generation tool, six months after its public release.
- Sora’s worldwide user count peaked at roughly one million before dropping to fewer than 500,000.
- Sora cost about $1 million per day to run, due to the high expense of AI chip usage for video generation.
- Anthropic’s Claude Code was attracting software engineers and enterprises, eroding OpenAI’s revenue opportunities.
- Sam Altman ordered the termination of Sora to free up compute resources and refocus the company.
- Disney had pledged $1 billion to a partnership with Sora, but the deal collapsed less than an hour before the public announcement.
Why it matters: OpenAI frees up the $1 million‑a‑day AI chip capacity that powered Sora, regaining compute for its core models; Anthropic’s Claude Code continues to win enterprise business as Sora’s users fell from a peak of about one million to under 500,000; Disney loses a $1 billion partnership and users lose Sora’s video‑generation service.
