While large corporations and governments will continue to be major backers of AI, startups have become the epicenter of much of the investment in the technology. According to a new report from S&P Global Ratings, by 2027 the $800 to $900 billion of private investment in AI startups could account for .6 to .7 percent of global GDP. And the U.S. is leading the way.
Between 2013 and 2023, the U.S. has dominated in terms of private investment in AI. The cumulative total investment in U.S.-based private sector AI companies was more than $335 billion, the report said., compared with Chinese companies, which received less than a third of that (around $103 billion).
“The U.S.’s current dominance of this metric reflects an economy driven by the private sector as well as institutional strengths—including sound policy support, vast financial resources, a wide talent pool, and the existence of large, privately led innovation hubs,” the report’s authors wrote. “This is also evident in the creation of about 5,500 new AI-related companies in the U.S. since 2013, which is more than all the other countries combined and over 3.6 times more than second-placed China.”
The report notes that governments will exert enormous power over AI development, especially China, which has already announced state-sponsored programs to develop a domestic AI-skilled workforce and provide foreign workers with incentives to come to China to work on AI. Much of China’s spending on AI is likely to be directly government funded and will be relatively opaque to outside observers, the report noted, making comparisons between countries difficult.
