The AI
Ecosystem Explained: the AI infrastructure stack in plain English, layer by layer

Designs the GPUs and accelerated computing platforms used for much of modern AI training and inference, and sells the networking that ties them together.

Designs CPUs and the Instinct family of AI accelerators, sold as an alternative to NVIDIA at the data centre scale.

Designs and manufactures CPUs, and is attempting to build a contract manufacturing business for other companies' chip designs.

Manufactures chips designed by other companies, including most leading edge AI accelerators, and provides the advanced packaging that binds logic dies to memory.

Builds the lithography systems used to print circuit patterns onto silicon wafers, including extreme ultraviolet machines.

Manufactures memory, including high bandwidth memory stacks that sit alongside AI accelerators.

Manufactures DRAM, NAND and high bandwidth memory used in AI servers.

Manufactures memory including HBM, runs a contract chip manufacturing business, and builds consumer devices.

Co-designs custom AI accelerators for hyperscalers and supplies much of the switching and connectivity silicon inside data centres.

Builds Gemini models through Google DeepMind, designs TPU accelerators, operates Google Cloud, and distributes AI through Search, Workspace and Android.

Runs AWS, designs Trainium and Inferentia accelerators, hosts third party models through Bedrock, and invests in Anthropic.

Runs Azure, distributes AI through Microsoft 365 and Copilot, partners commercially with OpenAI, and designs its own Maia accelerators.

Develops the Llama model family and deploys AI across its own products, while designing MTIA accelerators for internal workloads.

Designs data infrastructure silicon including optical interconnect, custom compute and storage controllers.

Operates a large fleet of nuclear generation in the United States and sells power under long term contracts.

Runs a mixed generation fleet including nuclear, gas and storage, and sells into wholesale power markets.

Develops and operates renewable generation and storage at scale alongside a regulated Florida utility.

Makes solid oxide fuel cells that generate electricity on site from natural gas, biogas or hydrogen.

Designing small modular fast reactors intended to sell power directly to large users such as data centres.

Supplies gas turbines, grid equipment and wind generation, and services the installed base.

Supplies electrification and automation equipment including transformers, switchgear and drives.

Supplies electrical distribution equipment, switchgear, busway and uninterruptible power systems.

Supplies power distribution, UPS, cooling and data centre management software, often as a packaged design.

Makes data centre power and thermal management equipment, including liquid cooling for high density racks.

Makes thermal management products including data centre cooling and heat rejection systems.

Runs Azure, distributes AI through Microsoft 365 and Copilot, partners commercially with OpenAI, and designs its own Maia accelerators.

Runs AWS, designs Trainium and Inferentia accelerators, hosts third party models through Bedrock, and invests in Anthropic.

Builds Gemini models through Google DeepMind, designs TPU accelerators, operates Google Cloud, and distributes AI through Search, Workspace and Android.

Runs Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with a strong GPU cluster business, and sells the databases and applications that hold a great deal of enterprise data.

Operates colocation data centres where customers place their own equipment and interconnect with each other.

Develops and leases large scale data centre capacity to hyperscalers and enterprises.

Operates GPU cloud infrastructure purpose built for AI training and inference rather than general computing.

Operates AI focused cloud infrastructure in Europe. It emerged from the old Yandex international business after the Russian operations were sold in 2024, with the Dutch parent keeping the global assets.

Operators that built large powered sites for cryptocurrency mining and now convert or develop capacity for AI and high performance computing tenants.

Designs the GPUs and accelerated computing platforms used for much of modern AI training and inference, and sells the networking that ties them together.

Designs the GPUs and accelerated computing platforms used for much of modern AI training and inference, and sells the networking that ties them together.

Builds high speed Ethernet switching and the network operating system used in large data centres and AI clusters.

Co-designs custom AI accelerators for hyperscalers and supplies much of the switching and connectivity silicon inside data centres.

Makes high speed connectivity products including active electrical cables and retimers used inside racks.

Makes optical transceivers, lasers and photonic components used to move data between racks and buildings.

Supplies photonics including lasers and transceivers for data centre interconnect.

Designs data infrastructure silicon including optical interconnect, custom compute and storage controllers.

A pre-revenue research company developing polymer based electro-optic materials for high speed optical modulation.

Operates a global network providing content delivery, DDoS protection, zero trust services and edge compute.

Runs a cloud data platform for storing, governing and querying enterprise data, with AI features layered on top.

Provides a lakehouse platform combining data engineering, analytics and machine learning on open table formats.

Privately held. Investors include Microsoft and several large asset managers, so exposure is indirect and partial.

Provides a document database, delivered mainly as the Atlas managed service, with integrated vector search.

Runs Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with a strong GPU cluster business, and sells the databases and applications that hold a great deal of enterprise data.

Commercialises Apache Kafka as a managed platform for streaming data between systems.

Provides search, observability and security analytics built on Elasticsearch, including vector search.

Sells data integration and decision platforms to governments and large enterprises, increasingly packaged around AI driven workflows.

Provides enterprise resource planning software that runs core finance, supply chain and HR processes for many large firms.

Develops the GPT family of models and ships them through ChatGPT, an API and enterprise products.

Private. Microsoft is a major shareholder and its principal cloud and commercial partner, which is the most common route to indirect exposure.

Develops the Claude family of models, sold through an API, consumer apps and cloud marketplaces.

Private. Amazon and Alphabet are both significant investors and cloud partners, which is the usual indirect route.

Alphabet's AI research organisation, responsible for the Gemini model family and a long research record beyond language models.

Develops the Grok model family and operates its own large training cluster.

Private, with reported links to other Musk controlled businesses. There is no clean listed proxy.

Develops the Llama model family and deploys AI across its own products, while designing MTIA accelerators for internal workloads.

Develops efficient models, several released with open weights, aimed at European enterprises and sovereign deployments.

Private, French, with strategic investors including industrial and technology partners. Exposure is largely unavailable to public investors.

Runs Azure, distributes AI through Microsoft 365 and Copilot, partners commercially with OpenAI, and designs its own Maia accelerators.

Runs AWS, designs Trainium and Inferentia accelerators, hosts third party models through Bedrock, and invests in Anthropic.

Builds Gemini models through Google DeepMind, designs TPU accelerators, operates Google Cloud, and distributes AI through Search, Workspace and Android.

Designs the GPUs and accelerated computing platforms used for much of modern AI training and inference, and sells the networking that ties them together.

Sells data integration and decision platforms to governments and large enterprises, increasingly packaged around AI driven workflows.

Provides a workflow platform for IT, HR and customer operations, with AI agents embedded in those workflows.

Sells customer relationship management software with an agent platform layered over its data and workflow estate.

Runs Azure, distributes AI through Microsoft 365 and Copilot, partners commercially with OpenAI, and designs its own Maia accelerators.

Sells business process automation and decisioning software to large organisations.

Provides creative and document software with generative features built into its established tools.

Hosts code and ships Copilot, the coding assistant most developers encountered first.

A biotechnology company applying computational methods within immunotherapy development.

Builds electric vehicles and develops driver assistance and autonomy software, a planned robotaxi service, the Optimus humanoid robot programme and custom inference silicon for its vehicles.