BY THE NUMBERS
Spending on AI is forecast to skyrocket to $2.5 trillion in 2026, dwarfing even the biggest scientific and infrastructure tasks.
World leaders and tech executives are convening in New Delhi for the India-AI Impact Summit 2026, specializing in the position of synthetic intelligence in governance, job disruption and international collaboration.
Nevertheless, behind these discussions lies the monetary actuality. Over the previous decade, AI has drawn one of many largest waves of personal funding in fashionable historical past, totalling trillions of {dollars}.
In response to Gartner, a United States-based enterprise and know-how insights firm, worldwide spending on AI is forecast to whole $2.5 trillion in 2026, a 44 % improve over 2025.
To grasp the magnitude of those investments, Al Jazeera visualises the staggering quantities by evaluating them with among the largest tasks ever created by humanity. We additionally spotlight which nations are spending essentially the most on AI and supply insights into expenditures on information centres, fashions, companies, and safety.
What does $1bn seem like?
To assist perceive a trillion {dollars}, it’s helpful to first visualise what tens of millions and billions of {dollars} seem like through the use of a stack of US greenback payments.
In case you break these quantities down utilizing $100 payments, right here is how they stack up:
- $1,000 would type a stack about 1cm (0.393-inch) excessive.
- $10,000 would type a stack roughly 10cm (3.93-inch) excessive.
- $1m would match inside a briefcase.
- $10m would match inside a really massive suitcase.
- $100m would match on an industrial pallet stacked waist-high.
- $1bn would create a constructing roughly 5.2 metres (17 ft) excessive, with a width and a size of about 2 metres (6.6 ft) every.
One other manner to consider it’s when you spent $1 each second, it could take:
- 11.5 days to spend $1m
- 31 years to spend $1bn
- 31,000 years to spend $1 trillion
In additional tangible phrases, $1bn is roughly equal to:
- The estimated price of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, one of many largest archaeological museums on the earth
- The price of establishing two to a few fashionable soccer stadiums, relying on measurement and design
- Shopping for 10 luxurious personal jets (at $100m every)
- Shopping for 6.3 tonnes of gold (at $5,000 per ounce)
- Shopping for 1 million high-end iPhones at retail value
$1.6 trillion already spent on AI
Over the previous decade, AI-related investments have surged practically 13-fold.
In response to the 2025 AI Index Report by Stanford College, between 2013 and 2024, whole international company funding in AI reached $1.6 trillion. This substantial expenditure dwarfs even the biggest scientific and infrastructure tasks of the twentieth and twenty first centuries.
To place the size of AI funding into perspective, take into account the way it compares with among the most formidable and costly tasks in fashionable historical past. All figures are adjusted to 2024 US {dollars}:
- The Manhattan Venture (1942-46): $36bn
- The Worldwide Area Station (1984-2011): $150bn
- The Apollo Program (1960-73): $250bn
- The US Interstate Freeway System (1956-92): $620bn
In simply over a decade, funding in AI has surpassed the price of growing the primary atomic bomb, touchdown people on the moon and the decades-long effort to construct the 75,440km (46,876-mile) US interstate freeway community.
In contrast to these landmark tasks, AI funding has not been pushed by a single authorities or wartime urgency. It has flowed by way of personal markets, enterprise capital, company analysis and improvement, and international buyers, making it one of many largest privately financed technological waves in historical past.
International company investments in AI cowl an enormous array of operations, together with mergers and acquisitions, minority stakes, personal investments, and public choices. These monumental expenditures spotlight the in depth monetary dedication to advance AI.
Which nations are spending essentially the most on AI?
The AI funding surge is concentrated in only a few nations, the place personal capital has fuelled hundreds of startups and formed international innovation hubs.
The US has dominated AI spending, accounting for roughly 62 % of whole personal AI funding since 2013. Between 2013 and 2024, US corporations spent $471bn on AI. Chinese language corporations are the second-largest spenders at $119bn, adopted by the UK at $28bn.
These figures exclude authorities spending, such because the US CHIPS Act or European nationwide AI subsidies.
International personal funding in AI by nation, 2013-24:
- US: $471bn, supporting 6,956 newly funded AI corporations
- China: $119bn, 1,605 startups
- UK: $28bn, 885 startups
- Canada: $15bn, 481 startups
- Israel: $15bn, 492 startups
- Germany: $13bn, 394 startups
- India: $11bn, 434 startups
- France: $11bn, 468 startups
- South Korea: $9bn, 270 startups
- Singapore: $7bn, 239 startups
- Others: $58bn
AI spending to whole $2.5 trillion in 2026
AI spending is forecast to skyrocket to $2.5 trillion in 2026, pushed by a large international build-out of knowledge centres and companies, based on Gartner.
The majority of the spending is anticipated to go in direction of:
- AI infrastructure: $1.37 trillion
- AI companies: $589bn
- AI software program: $452bn
- AI cybersecurity: $51bn
- AI platforms for information science and machine studying: $31bn
- AI fashions: $26bn
- AI utility improvement platforms: $8.4bn
- AI information: $3bn
By 2027, Gartner is forecasting that AI spending will surpass $3.3 trillion.
