Bain Says AI Needs $6 Trillion in Annual Revenue by 2031

Bain & Company estimates that annual AI revenue must reach about $6 trillion by 2031 to fund growing demand for computing capacity, the firm said in a press release. Existing consumer and enterprise applications could generate $1.2 trillion to $1.8 trillion, while about $4.2 trillion would need to come from new categories.

Those categories include AI enhanced search and advertising, autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, simulations, digital twins, robotics, drug discovery, mental health applications and energy generation.

The report says the market capitalization of hardware and semiconductor companies grew at a compound annual rate of 24% from 2020 to 2026, compared with 6% for software companies. High bandwidth memory, advanced packaging and custom silicon are among the fastest growing segments.

Bain also estimates that AI has reduced the time required for a typical cyberattack from about four weeks to roughly 18 hours. In a survey of 293 senior technology leaders, respondents expected release cycles to become 148% faster and software developer productivity to rise 95% over the next one to two years.