Google, Microsoft Will Dominate AI as Computing Costs Surge
Start-up firms in artificial intelligence can’t afford to keep the lights on.
Getting pricier.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Sam Altman’s goal of raising about $7 trillion to make artificial-intelligence chips tells a story beyond his borderline-insane ambitions. First, the infrastructure needed to build AI has become exorbitantly expensive. Second, most of that value is still — still! — held by a handful of large technology companies — and the oligopoly is only going to get worse.
For all the competition that was spurred by the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, and the flurry of new startups that jumped into the hyped-up generative AI market, most of those new players will likely fold or be folded into the incumbents over the next year or so. The costs of doing business are too high for them to survive on their own.