The artificial intelligence race is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, with massive investments and rapid adoption reshaping global markets. Elon Musk's SpaceX, which also develops AI models, recently announced a $1.77tn valuation target, while Anthropic, the creator of the Claude chatbot, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO). OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is expected to follow suit.
This latest peak in the AI market comes amid a multitrillion-dollar spending spree on infrastructure such as datacentres. Companies are racing to deploy the technology in ways that justify the investments. Here is an analysis of the current state of the AI boom, illustrated by six key charts.
1. AI Has Sent Stocks Soaring
The S&P 500 index has surged nearly 80% over the past five years, driven by big tech stocks heavily involved in AI—the so-called 'magnificent seven': Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. According to Bianco Research, investor concentration on technology is unprecedented, with 41 AI-related stocks now accounting for nearly half of the S&P 500's market value.
Neil Wilson, an analyst at Saxo UK, warns that the prospect of a 1970s-style inflation shock, lofty tech valuations, and a potential freeze in private credit markets do not bode well. 'The entire market has become one giant AI edifice,' he says. 'The danger is a repeat of the dotcom bubble—a huge crash and years of lost returns. By some measures, valuations aren't as stretched as then, but this looks like an incredibly dangerous market.'
2. Expenditure Is Growing at a Staggering Rate
Spending on AI—from datacentres to chips—is racing ahead, projected to rise from $765bn this year to $1.6tn by 2031, according to Goldman Sachs. The investment bank acknowledges potential problems with this scale of commitment, such as delays in datacentre construction. 'At the scale of capital being committed, even modest delays in execution invite real scrutiny around the demand assumptions used to underwrite these investments,' Goldman analysts note. However, they add that if spending plans proceed without hitches, it could unleash a new wave of AI demand.
3. Firms and Consumers Are Adopting AI at Pace
Despite mixed reports on benefits, the vast majority of companies are starting to use AI—up from 33% in 2023 to nearly 80% now, according to McKinsey. Public usage is also high, with OpenAI's ChatGPT reaching 1bn monthly active users, a record for any app, per Sensor Tower data. The challenge for AI developers is monetising this vast customer base. Companies need to demonstrate that AI improves outcomes and reduces costs enough to warrant the expense, which means integrating it into entire workflows—a goal still far from realisation.
4. Claude Is Snapping at ChatGPT's Heels
Anthropic began gaining ground on OpenAI late last year when its Claude Code tool went viral among software developers, particularly in the San Francisco area, before spreading more widely. Claude Code represents a shift towards autonomous AI agents that perform tasks without human intervention, enabling even non-tech-savvy users to create software. While OpenAI still has a larger user base, data from Kentik shows Anthropic is catching up quickly. Claude's user traffic grew significantly faster than ChatGPT and Google's Gemini between January and April, spiking after the Pentagon declared it a supply chain risk. At this rate, Kentik projects Claude could overtake ChatGPT by summer, giving Anthropic an easier path to an IPO.
5. AI Is Getting More Expensive to Use
AI usage costs are measured in 'tokens'—building blocks of language such as words, punctuation, or syllables. OpenAI prices GPT-5.5 at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens. Token costs are rising sharply, even as companies encourage employees to 'tokenmaxx'—use AI extensively. The problem for AI companies is that they still aren't charging enough. The inherent promise is that AI spending is offset by productivity gains, but if this trade-off fails, the assumptions underpinning AI valuations and policies are undermined. 'The costs are getting completely out of control,' says Liam Betsworth, founder of the British AI startup Pendra. He notes that software developers quickly move from cheapest subscriptions to most expensive packages. Axios recently reported an unnamed company spending $500m in a month on Claude Code licences.
6. Datacentre Building Might Not Keep Pace with Demand
Datacentres are the central nervous system of AI products, so growing AI usage must be matched by more capacity to avoid a 'compute crunch' and rising costs. Bloomberg estimates 23GW of capacity was under construction globally in 2025. JLL predicts 100GW will be added between 2026 and 2030—doubling current capacity, equivalent to 1,200 datacentres. However, JLL acknowledges its estimate includes speculative projects that may never break ground. The source of funding and energy supply remains uncertain. Cecilia Rikap, an associate professor at University College London, questions whether governments have calculated the feasibility of grid expansion and considered environmental damage.
7. What AI Models Can Do Is Expanding Rapidly
AI capabilities have improved by leaps and bounds since 2023, according to METR, which measures AI performance based on coding tasks. AI models are doubling in capability every four months. For instance, Anthropic's Claude Mythos achieves a 50% success rate on tasks that would take a human expert eight hours to two days. However, there is no commensurate impact on jobs so far. A March report from Anthropic shows that while AI could theoretically perform many jobs, it has yet to do so in force. Bouke Klein Teeselink, an academic at King's College London, notes bottlenecks in workforce adoption, such as the safety of outsourcing senior management or legally sensitive tasks. Nonetheless, he says change is coming: 'We are very much at the early stages of the AI revolution. The amount of change we will see will be huge.'
8. Datacentres Are Propping Up US GDP
Despite reduced government employment and mass layoffs, US GDP grew 2.1% in 2025 and 1.6% in Q1 2026, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. A Harvard economist calculates that without the datacentre boom, these figures would be far smaller—'investment in information processing equipment and software' accounted for 92% of US GDP growth in the first half of 2025. This means datacentres and the AI boom carry a disproportionate share of US growth, and any dent in this expenditure could have economic and political consequences.
