In artificial intelligence, billions are so 2022. Three years after ChatGPT ignited the AI boom, the business is all about trillions. The market value of Microsoft, whose Azure cloud has a glistening AI lining, is not far off its recent $4trn record.
Alphabet, which is giving Google an AI makeover, has just become a $3trn company. On a good day, Amazon, with a rival cloud, rounds to that. Meta, as much about AI these days as about social media, is now firmly a $2trn firm, plus or minus.
AI revenues and expenditures are likewise a 13-figure affair nowadays. Worldwide spending on AI hardware and software nudged $1trn last year, according to Gartner, a research firm. This is likely to double to $2trn in 2026. Between 2024 and 2026 the five listed AI powerhouses will have splurged over $1trn on capital investments, chiefly AI data centres.
Such a tally of zeros is normally reserved for official statisticians in G20 economies. In business, it is dizzying. All the more so given that examining the AI titans’ finances can be like staring into a black hole.
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