AI must generate $6T in annual revenue by 2031 to justify infrastructure boom: Bain

The artificial intelligence industry could need to generate nearly $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 to sustain the unprecedented infrastructure buildout underway across chips, data centres, networks and power systems, according to Bain & Company. The warning comes as the world's largest technology companies dramatically increase spending on the computing capacity needed to develop and run AI models. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Oracle could collectively spend as much as $780 billion on capital expenditure in 2026, nearly five times their combined level three years earlier, Bain estimates. But the consultancy says the bigger challenge is no longer simply building enough infrastructure. It is creating enough economic value to pay for it. “Enterprise…