The AI infrastructure web grows ever more complex

Five charts to start your day

The AI boom is no longer a story about individual companies racing ahead. Today’s chart shows something different. The industry is knitting itself into a single, tightly bound web where a handful of firms build the infrastructure for each other at a scale the tech world has rarely seen.

At the centre sits OpenAI. Around it: Nvidia, Microsoft and Oracle, each linked through commitments that look less like standard contracts and more like long term alliances. Nvidia plans to invest up to $100 billion into OpenAI. OpenAI is buying three hundred billion dollars of compute from Oracle. The two companies want to deploy ten gigawatts of data centres together. AMD and Broadcom are forming similar multi gigawatt partnerships. These decisions effectively lock the key players into a shared future.

This is how ecosystems consolidate. The deeper the interdependence, the harder it becomes for outsiders to break in. Chip makers, cloud providers and AI developers are no longer working in separate markets. They are constructing one shared system where control over silicon, compute and models sits with a very small group of firms.

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CHART 1 • The AI infrastructure web grows ever more complex

If you want a clear picture of how concentrated the AI boom has become this chart tells the story in one image. Instead of a broad competitive landscape we are watching the same handful of firms invest in each other build the infrastructure for each other and buy services from each other at a scale the tech industry has rarely seen.

At the centre sits OpenAI surrounded by Nvidia Microsoft and Oracle each linked through enormous commitments. Nvidia has agreed to invest up to $100bn in OpenAI. OpenAI has signed a deal to purchase $300bn in compute from Oracle. Nvidia and OpenAI plan to deploy 10GW of data centres together. AMD and Broadcom have similar multi gigawatt partnerships. These are not normal commercial contracts. They are ecosystem defining alliances that bind infrastructure investment product development and strategic control into one tight cluster.

The effect is a feedback loop. The more these firms rely on each other the harder it becomes for outsiders to compete. Chip makers cloud providers and AI developers are not operating in separate markets any more. They are building a single interdependent system where a small group of companies effectively control the stack from silicon to services.

If AI is shaping up to be the defining technology of the next decade how healthy is a future where so much of the industry’s power and capital flows through a network this concentrated?

Source: Goldman Sachs

What worries me is not the collaboration itself but the shape it is creating. When the same companies supply each other, finance each other and set the pace for the entire industry, barriers to entry rise sharply. Innovation risks becoming something managed within a club rather than contested across a market.

AI will define the coming decade, but an industry this centralised raises questions about resilience, competition and national influence. The infrastructure now being built will determine who captures the value and who remains a customer at the edge.

I have four more charts in the full edition that unpack how this concentration is already spilling into schools, property, politics and global consumer markets. They are for paid subscribers. If you want the complete daily version of Five Killer Charts, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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