03 Apr 2026
After three years of 20% gains, 2026 has again started on a strong note. This latest rally is one of the most concentrated ever. The global stock market is two-thirds American, of which 40% is just 10 stocks with one huge bet: generative artificial intelligence (AI). A quarter of the world stock market relies on this. Five hyperscalers – Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle – plan to add $2 trillion of AI-related assets to their balance sheets by 2030. These assets will be depreciated at 20% per annum – an annual cost of $400 billion – which is more than their 2025 profits. And this is not the whole picture: OpenAI needs $1.4 trillion for data centres, not to mention plans from Anthropic, xAI, CoreWeave, Lambda and Crusoe. Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, has questioned large language models (LLMs): they are brilliant at recycling old knowledge but not capable of coming up with the new. AI adoption slowed at the end of 2025; we saw this in the late 1990s with dotcom. Investment is needed for first-mover advantage where network effects, economies of scale or patent/legal protections are present. This is not the case with AI, where the user does not interact with other users but with AI itself. Unlike software programmes which you can replicate at little margin.
Paul Doyle
Head of Large Cap European Equities