The global artificial intelligence industry will need to generate about $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 to justify the capital being invested in data centers, according to Bain & Co.
The consulting firm estimates that existing consumer and enterprise AI services could generate up to $1.8 trillion of that revenue, leaving about $4.2 trillion that would need to come from new AI applications and markets.
Bain said the additional revenue could come from emerging areas such as autonomous machines, robotics, drug discovery, mental health and energy generation.
“The industry needs a wave of innovation” that would be significantly larger than the changes created by mobile technology and cloud computing, David Crawford, lead author of the report and chairman of Bain’s Global Technology, Media, and Telecommunications practice, said.
Crawford said AI infrastructure is being built ahead of the demand curve and that sustainable funding would require AI to add about 1 percent to annual global GDP growth.
Companies including Microsoft, Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, Meta and Oracle are investing trillions of dollars in data centers to meet rising demand for AI computing capacity. Bain said data center sizes and costs are doubling roughly every 12 to 16 months, partly because of higher prices for chips, networking equipment and other components.
The consultancy estimates that data center spending could reach $5 trillion to $6.5 trillion by 2030, adding at least 150 gigawatts of capacity. Annual spending on AI infrastructure, including data centers, computing capacity and accelerator and memory chip upgrades, could reach as much as $1.5 trillion by 2031.
The report comes amid growing debate over the returns being generated by AI services. Bain said the economics of AI infrastructure will require trillions of dollars in new revenue beyond productivity gains.
Data center developers are already facing shortages of transformers, water and power supplies, while local opposition has also delayed or blocked projects. In the United States, $68 billion worth of data center projects were blocked or delayed during the June quarter, according to the report.
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