OpenAI's decision to close Sora (a video creation tool using artificial intelligence) only 6 months after its launch has caused a stir in the technology community.
Initially, many questions revolved around the application allowing uploading personal faces, raising concerns about data collection.
However, according to an investigation by WSJ (The Wall Street Journal - one of the leading prestigious newspapers in the US), the actual cause is more economic.
After a period of bustling launch, the number of Sora users peaked at about 1 million but quickly decreased to below 500,000. Meanwhile, operating costs are very high, up to about 1 million USD per day.
The reason lies in the fact that creating videos with AI requires large computing power, consuming expensive AI chips for each task.
The problem of "burning money" but not creating corresponding value makes Sora a burden. In that context, OpenAI is forced to reconsider its strategy, especially when competitors such as Anthropic are increasing pressure.
Claude Code products of this company are said to be attracting businesses and gradually gaining market share.
Faced with the risk of falling behind in the AI race, CEO Sam Altman made a decisive decision to stop Sora to release computing resources and focus on more strategic products.
This move shows that OpenAI prioritizes efficiency and long-term competitiveness instead of maintaining a costly product.
Notably, the decision to close Sora was made very suddenly. According to WSJ, a large partner like Disney committed to invest up to 1 billion USD but was only announced less than an hour before the information was widely announced. The cooperation agreement between the two sides also ended immediately afterwards.
The termination of Sora shows that the AI race is not just about technology, but also about cost, efficiency and long-term strategy.
