{"id":1444365,"date":"2026-03-17T13:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T12:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/?p=1444365"},"modified":"2026-03-17T13:43:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T12:43:17","slug":"where-global-economies-sit-in-the-ai-stack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/news\/where-global-economies-sit-in-the-ai-stack","title":{"rendered":"Where global economies sit in the AI stack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2024, private-sector AI investment in the US totaled $109 billion, far exceeding that of China and the UK, which trailed far behind in second and third place.[1]<\/sup><\/a> However, as the focus of AI investment shifts from model development to physical infrastructure and implementation within companies, value creation is increasingly concentrated outside the US and benefits firms active in industrial systems, global hardware supply chains, and real-world applications. This shift has significant implications for investors\u2019 considerations regarding exposure to global equities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s largest internet and digital services companies are entering a new multi-year investment cycle\u00a0<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s position in the AI stack is characterized less by dominance in proprietary frontier models and more by scale, infrastructure investments, and the delivery of AI via digital platforms as well as its application in manufacturing. While U.S. companies continue to raise the most capital for cutting-edge AI research, China is taking a different path, focusing on cost-effective and application-oriented open-source AI such as DeepSeek, which demonstrated to the world that the country is capable of developing competitive large language models with training costs and computational intensity far lower than those of comparable models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This approach has lowered the barriers to AI adoption, and the pace of its adoption in the corporate world is accelerating. At the same time, China\u2019s largest internet and digital services companies are entering a new multi-year investment cycle. By the end of 2027, a total of more than $78 billion is expected to be invested, with spending increasingly focused on AI infrastructure, data centers, and cloud capacities.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside the U.S.: Global Leaders in AI (Weighted Index Value)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: 2026 Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) AI Index, Global AI Vibrancy Rankings (2024, G20 latest available country data). The Global AI Vibrancy Ranking includes a default weighting scheme based on the AI Index team\u2019s assessment of the relative importance of various pillars and indicators.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The list of the ten largest government investment commitments shows that market leadership in the AI sector is becoming geographically diversified.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2025, in USD.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Taiwan <\/strong>occupies a critical bottleneck in terms of the computing capacity required for AI: the country manufactures approximately 90% of the world\u2019s most advanced logic chips. This concentration is often described as Taiwan\u2019s \u201csilicon shield\u201d due to its strategic global significance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Korea\u2019s <\/strong>memory chip segment plays a central role in the hardware layer of the AI stack. The country is a global leader in dynamic random-access memory, particularly high-bandwidth memory, and also holds a leading position in NAND flash memory. AI spending is increasingly shifting toward graphics processing units and accelerated servers, and demand is trending toward higher-end memory configurations. This shift in focus toward memory-intensive AI workloads is likely to benefit South Korea\u2019s technology sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan: Industrial AI and Productivity Gains<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s position in the AI stack is determined less by capital intensity and more by industrial AI applications, implementation challenges, and policy direction. The environment has improved since Sanae Takaichi became Prime Minister following a landslide election victory. Markets interpret her success at the polls as a strong mandate to implement structural reforms and long-term growth initiatives. Since the beginning of the year, Japan-focused exchange-traded funds have seen strong net capital inflows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazil and Saudi Arabia: Energy Abundance as an Advantage for AI Infrastructure<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Brazil\u2019s role in the AI sector extends beyond supplying the necessary raw materials. The country\u2019s energy mix is among the cleanest in the world: renewable energy accounts for about 90% of electricity generation. This clean energy advantage is becoming increasingly relevant for companies\u2019 AI infrastructure, as the cost and stability of the power supply directly impact the economic viability of a data center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saudi Arabia is pursuing an ambitious, government-led AI infrastructure strategy that few countries in the world\u2014apart from the U.S. and China\u2014can match. As part of Vision 2030, Riyadh is leveraging its abundance of low-cost energy, capital, and land to position itself as a regional hub for AI infrastructure and computing capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> Source: Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> Source: Bloomberg Intelligence, February 9, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. companies still invest the most in artificial intelligence (AI) and dominate model development, but a lead in AI is by no means a guarantee of a top position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1436388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1444365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion-leaders-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1444365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1444366,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444365\/revisions\/1444366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1436388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1444365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1444365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.payoff.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1444365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}