Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to contribute $19.9 trillion to the global economy by 2030, said Dr. Esam bin Abdullah Alwagait, director of Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) National Information Center (NIC).

Alwagait emphasized that this ambitious direction reinforces the Kingdom’s position as an international model for leveraging advanced technologies for sustainable development. His remarks came during a visual presentation delivered at the reception hosted by the Saudi embassy in Lisbon, Portugal, to mark the 95th National Day.

During the presentation, he emphasized that Saudi Arabia is confidently advancing its leadership in the field of data and AI in line with the objectives of the Saudi Vision 2030, positioning itself among the top ranks in AI-related indicators globally.

AI’s contribution to the global economy continues to grow, with spending expected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2025 and $2 trillion by 2026, according to Gartner, Inc. From 2024 to 2026, the projected spending in various AI markets worldwide is as follows:

In 2024, AI services are expected to reach $259.5 billion, while AI application software will total $83.7 billion. By 2025, spending on AI services is estimated to increase to $282.6 billion, with AI application software surging to $172.0 billion. In 2026, AI services are forecasted to hit $324.7 billion, and AI application software will grow to $269.7 billion.

AI infrastructure software is projected to rise from $56.9 billion in 2024 to $126.2 billion in 2025 and further to $229.8 billion in 2026. GenAI models will see a notable increase from $5.7 billion to $14.2 billion in 2025, and $25.8 billion by 2026.

AI-optimized servers, including GPU and non-GPU AI accelerators, are also expected to grow from $140.1 billion in 2024 to $267.5 billion in 2025, reaching $329.5 billion by 2026. Additionally, AI-optimized Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is projected to expand from $7.4 billion to $18.3 billion in 2025 and $37.5 billion in 2026.

To meet the expected global AI demand by 2030, $2 trillion in annual revenue is crucial to fund the necessary computing power. However, despite the savings generated from AI initiatives, there remains an $800 billion gap to keep pace with this demand, according to new research from Bain & Company.

By 2030, technology executives will be faced with the challenge of deploying about $500 billion in capital expenditures and finding about $2 trillion in new revenue to profitably meet demand.

Meanwhile, because AI compute demand is outpacing semiconductor efficiency, the trends indicate a need for dramatic increases in power supply on grids that have not added capacity for decades.

Read more