By Ajay Raju
The next five years will witness the most transformative period in technological history since the industrial revolution. The global AI market, valued at approximately $390 billion in 2025, is projected to reach $1.80 trillion by 2030 as artificial intelligence becomes the backbone of global commerce and society. The convergence of mature AI models, humanoid robotics, and unprecedented computational infrastructure will create entirely new economic sectors while fundamentally restructuring existing industries. By 2030, the question will not be which companies use AI, but which ones have successfully integrated autonomous systems into their core operations.
The AI triumvirate
OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google will most likely shape the foundation for the markets in the coming 5 years.
OpenAI’s trajectory from zero revenue in 2023 to $12.7 billion in 2025 represents just the beginning of its market dominance. By 2030, OpenAI could achieve in excess of $100 billion in annual revenue, assuming 300% year-over-year growth rates moderating to 40-50% annually as the market matures. Profitability breakthrough could happen in 2029, with cash-flow positive operations unlocking massive reinvestment in research and infrastructure. Moreover, OpenAI’s deep integration with Microsoft’s ecosystem should make OpenAI the default AI provider for Fortune 500 companies. The company’s partnership with SoftBank for data center infrastructure through the Stargate initiative positions it to handle exponential compute demands. OpenAI and SoftBank are planning to build a small data center by the end of 2025, marking the beginning of a distributed AI infrastructure that will span globally by 2030.
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Meanwhile, Anthropic has focused on B2B use cases, becoming a “model provider,” with revenue growing from about $1B annualized at the start of 2025 to $4B in annualized revenue by mid-2025. This 4x growth rate in six months positions Anthropic for $50 billion annual revenue by 2030, capturing 25-30% of the enterprise AI market through specialized vertical solutions. Anthropic’s industry-specific AI dominance has helped it sucure a lead in healthcare AI, financial services, and legal technology where safety and reliability are paramount. It is quickly becoming the constitutional AI standard-bearer, becoming the trusted AI provider for regulated industries and government contracts.
Lastly, Google’s strategy centers on making AI infrastructure ubiquitous rather than competing directly on model performance. By 2030, Google Cloud could generate $200+ billion annually by providing the underlying AI infrastructure for millions of customers. Every Google product will feature autonomous agents, creating a seamless AI-powered user experience across search, productivity, and entertainment. Continued investment in open models will make Google the de facto standard for AI development globally.
$1.8 Trillion
The market is projected to reach $1.8T by 2030. It will reach those levels because we are undergoing a new revolution. For starters, the Large Language Model market alone is positioned to surge to $36.1 billion by 2030, representing only a fraction of the total AI economy. The broader AI transformation will encompass, among other sectors, a workplace revolution, enterprise AI integration, a robotics revolution, and an introduction of humanoid robots.
Workplace Revolution
McKinsey research identified about an hour of daily activities with automation potential in 2024. By 2030, expansion of use cases and continued AI safety improvements could increase automation potential up to three hours per day. This translates to 40% productivity gains across knowledge work, $2 trillion in annual labor cost savings globally, and creation of 50 million new AI-augmented job roles requiring human-AI collaboration skills.
AI Integration
By 2028, every Fortune 500 company will run on AI-first architecture. There will be autonomous business processes where supply chain management, customer service, and financial operations will function with minimal human intervention. There will be real-time decision engines as AI processes market data, customer behavior, and operational metrics to make instantaneous strategic decisions. Companies will anticipate and prevent problems before they occur through AI-powered monitoring systems
The Robotics Revolution:
In the next five years, humanoid robots will enter mass production, reaching an inflection point that will transform physical industries. By 2027, more than 10,000 humanoid robots will be shipped worldwide each year. By 2030, that number should grow to 38,000. The global humanoid robot market size is projected to grow from $3.28 billion in 2024 to $66.0 billion by 2032 at a CAGR of 45.5%, but market acceleration may push this timeline forward by 2-3 years.
Tesla Optimus:
Tesla aims to produce several thousand Optimus humanoid robots in 2025, with aspirations for exponential growth and 100,000 units expected by 2026. By 2030, Tesla may deploy 1 million+ Optimus robots, primarily in Tesla’s own manufacturing facilities, creating the world’s most automated production system. This should generate $50 billion in robotics revenue by selling and leasing humanoid robots to automotive, logistics, and manufacturing companies. All of this will give Tesla a labor cost advantage as Tesla vehicles will cost 40-60% less to produce than competitors due to robotic manufacturing.
Morgan Stanley forecasts the US market alone could support $3 trillion in annual economic activity related to humanoid robots by 2050. Most of the major players will undergo robotic transformation by 2030. In the manufacturing sector, 60% of assembly line workers could be replaced by robots. In logistics, autonomous robots could handle 80% of warehouse operations. In healthcare, surgical robots could perform 30% of routine procedures. In agriculture, robotic systems could manage 25% of crop cultivation and harvesting. In construction, robots could handle 40% of repetitive construction tasks.
AI Infrastructure
NVIDIA’s Jetson Thor chip could be the breakthrough that makes autonomous robotics economically viable. By 2030, it is estimated that 100 million robot brains will be deployed. Every autonomous system from manufacturing robots to delivery vehicles will run on NVIDIA silicon. That translates to a potential $500 billion robotics chip market as NVIDIA is poised to capture 70-80% market share in robotics processors. By 2030, real-time decision-making will occur at the point of action, not in centralized data centers.
The AI infrastructure boom will reshape global technology infrastructure with a potential $2 trillion in data center investment, creating hyperscale facilities optimized for AI training and inference. This represents a potential 100x increase in compute capacity needed to meet exponential demand from AI model training and robotics simulation. The AI boom will also create an energy revolution as nuclear and fusion power adoption is accelerated by AI energy demands.
In digital biology and drug discovery, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei speculates that AI could become a “virtual biologist who performs all the tasks biologists do”. By 2030, 50% of new drug candidates could be AI-discovered. AI will most likely customize treatments based on individual genetic profiles. All of this could generate a $500 billion biotech AI market, with AI companies dominating pharmaceutical research.
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In the Financial Services sector, there will be an algorithmic trading evolution as AI executes potentially 95% of all financial transactions. There will be real-time risk assessments as credit decisions are made instantly using AI analysis of thousands of data points. Regulatory compliance will be automated as AI helps ensure 100% regulatory compliance across global financial operations.
In the Legal and Professional Services sector, there will be AI legal assistants. Most lawyers will work with AI co-counsel capable of legal research, document analysis, and case strategy. Contract negotiation will be automated, with AI systems negotiating potentially 60% of commercial contracts. Compliance monitoring will be automated as AI continuously monitors regulatory changes and automatically update business processes.
AI-as-a-Service Economy
By 2030, most companies won’t own AI systems but will access them through subscription models. There will be AI utility companies, with specialized providers offering AI capabilities like electricity or internet service. These companies will offer pay-per-intelligence pricing based on AI computational cycles consumed. They will also offer outcome-based contracts guaranteeing specific business results rather than selling technology.
To be clear, human workforce will not be replaced, but there will be an augmented human-AI collaboration workforce. Every knowledge worker will have an AI assistant handling routine tasks. AI will serve as creative collaborators in design, writing, and problem solving. AI will provide real-time analysis and recommendations for most business decisions.
Last Word
By 2030, artificial intelligence and robotics could be as fundamental to the economy as electricity and the internet are today. The transformation will be so complete that companies without AI integration will be as competitively disadvantaged as businesses without computers in the 1990s. Organizations that successfully navigate this transformation will thrive in an economy of unprecedented productivity and innovation. Those that resist or delay will find themselves competing with increasingly intelligent systems that never tire, never stop learning, and continuously improve their performance.
The future is not just AI-enabled—it is AI-native. The next five years will determine who shapes this future and who adapts to it.
(Ajay Raju, a venture capitalist and lawyer, is the author of The Review, a column that attempts to decode the patterns emerging from the unprecedented shifts reshaping our world. In a world where adaptation is survival, The Review offers a compass for the journey ahead).