Altman: Google Remains Biggest Threat, OpenAI to Normalize Red Alerts

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently stated in an interview that despite massive investments and first-mover advantages, Google remains its “massive threat.” Altman emphasized that maintaining “healthy paranoia” is essential for tech companies’ survival and predicted that OpenAI will issue one to two “red alerts” annually, normalizing this crisis response mechanism. Although OpenAI has received billions in support from tech giants like NVIDIA and official institutions including the UK government, Altman believes Google’s deep technical foundation and resource reserves make it the number one competitor. Additionally, he revealed that the strong emergence of Chinese AI company DeepSeek in early 2025 directly triggered an internal “red alert” at OpenAI, demonstrating that emerging forces can also heighten OpenAI’s vigilance.