Satya Nadella, Microsoft (MS) chief executive officer (CEO), warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could end in a speculative bubble if it does not spread widely beyond big technology corporations and wealthy countries.
The Financial Times (FT) reported that on the 20th, Nadella, attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, shared this view in a conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink on the forum's first day.
Nadella said, "By definition, for this not to be a bubble, the benefits have to be distributed much more evenly." As an "unmistakable sign" of whether it is a bubble, he pointed to a situation in which only technology corporations ultimately profit even as the AI boom grows. He meant that if adoption does not spread to small and midsize businesses, the public institutional sector, and on-the-ground sites in emerging countries, expectations are unlikely to translate into real-world results. Even if corporations and governments make massive investments, it will be hard to achieve sustainable growth if productivity gains and expense reductions do not ripple across industries.
However, he said he is confident AI will bring transformative changes in various fields, such as helping to develop new drugs. Nadella emphasized that it is "a technology built on cloud and mobile foundations that will spread faster, change the productivity curve, and bring surplus value and economic growth to places around the world."
Nadella also reaffirmed the view that the future of AI adoption will not depend on a single dominant model provider. FT noted that Microsoft's decision to work with multiple AI corporations, including not only OpenAI but also Anthropic and xAI, reflects this judgment.
Meanwhile, this year's Davos forum drew a large turnout of top technology company leaders, including Nadella; Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind; and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic.