Annual corporate investment in AI is 13 times greater than a decade ago
The releases of artificial intelligence tools like DALL-E and ChatGPT are part of a funding push for new technologies that really only gained steam in the last five years or so. From 2018 onwards, global corporate investment for AI increased rapidly, from $79.6 billion to an annual $276.1 billion by 2021, according…Read more……
The releases of artificial intelligence tools like DALL-E and ChatGPT are part of a funding push for new technologies that really only gained steam in the last five years or so. From 2018 onwards, global corporate investment for AI increased rapidly, from $79.6 billion to an annual $276.1 billion by 2021, according to a new report (pdf) from Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI.
Funding fell off in 2022, with global corporate investments in AI that year totaling $189.6 billion, a 31% decrease from 2021. However, that was
still 13 times greater than what was spent in 2013.
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The biggest deals for AI
Corporate investment as measured in the report includes mergers and acquisitions, minority stakes, private investment, and public offerings.
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The largest single AI investment event in 2022 was the acquisition of Nuance Communications, acquired by Microsoft and valued at $19.8 billion, according to the report. The largest minority stake event was for the British company Aveva Group at $4.7 billion in 2022. The biggest private investment event was GAC Aion New Energy Automobile, a Chinese clean energy and automotive company for $2.5 billion, while the Chinese semiconductor company ASR Microelectronics had the largest public offering at $1.1 billion.
In 2022 there were 3,538 AI-related private investment events, representing a 12% decrease from 2021 but a sixfold increase since 2013. AI-related events that raised over $1 billion, however, did not decrease and are now over double what they were in 2021. The trends suggest a short-term funding decrease but greater potential for long-term growth, the Stanford report authors suggested.
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The global leader of private investments for AI is the US, with a total of $47.4 billion invested in 2022. That is 3.5 times the amount invested by China, at $13.4 billion, and 11 times what was invested in the UK, at $4.4 billion.