The artificial intelligence industry needs to generate $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 to justify the capital being deployed for data centres, according to a new report from Bain and Company. Revenue from new product development is projected to become the biggest contributor, estimated to generate about $4.2 trillion to fund the booming technology's global market within the next half-decade. That segment would include innovations in search, advertising, autonomy, and physical AI.

Enterprise productivity would require $1 trillion to $1.4 trillion in revenue to support gains in areas such as software development, sales, marketing, customer service, and IT operations. Absorption speed, or the pace at which companies can put AI to work, has become the "new competitive variable," with leading AI labs investing upwards of $9.75 billion in engineering models to help companies assimilate faster.

Consumer-focused services, including subscriptions and advertising revenue, is seen to contribute $200 billion to $400 billion. This segment is crucial as service providers push AI-powered products to billions of users globally. "New products and uses that don't exist today will enable new markets and opportunities from abundant intelligence – these may include drug discovery, mental health, and energy generation," Bain said.

Bain forecasts that annual spending on AI infrastructure might hit $1.5 trillion by 2031. If capital expenditures amount to about a quarter of industry revenue, sustaining this level of investment would require an AI market approaching $6 trillion annually. The size and cost of AI data centres is accelerating, doubling approximately every 12 to 16 months. For instance, the Prometheus data centre of Meta Platforms in Ohio had a capacity of 600MW at an estimated cost of $24 billion in 2025, projected to jump to 2GW and $80 billion by 2027, and up to 9GW at $200 billion by 2030, according to Epoch AI.