AI giants expand influence across global supply chain

The artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem is structured across five critical layers: computing power, infrastructure, data tools, models, and applications.

Significant upfront investment and economies of scale and scope favor the emergence of large, integrated firms.

The top 20 global AI firms are predominantly based in the United States, China, Chinese Taipei, Korea, and the Netherlands.

The seven leading publicly listed US-based firms alone hold over twice the market value of the next 13 AI giants combined.

Many of these dominant players, particularly from the US (Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta) and China (Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance), operate across most or all supply chain layers.

This integrated strategy, encompassing both market offerings and internal capacity building, grants them substantial competitive advantages.

More specialized entities, such as chipmakers like TSMC and ASML, concentrate on providing essential computing power inputs, rather than expanding into broader infrastructure or applications.

Global AI giants have significantly increased their macroeconomic footprint across multiple jurisdictions.

By the end of 2025, the top 20 publicly listed AI firms constituted 30-40 percent of total market capitalization in the US, Chinese Taipei, Korea, and the Netherlands.

Their share in China's equity markets stood at approximately 10 percent, reflecting regulatory reforms since 2020. In the real economy, these firms' influence is also expanding.

By late 2024, they accounted for 26 percent of total capital expenditure in Korea and 21 percent in the US.

Their revenue share reached 12 percent in Korea and 11 percent in the US.

Furthermore, US-based AI giants have broadened their scope, now operating in three to four supply chain layers on average, up from two in the early 2000s, covering chip design to user applications.