UBS Says AI Will Create the Next Economic Superpower
Apple became a trillion-dollar company on the back of the smartphone revolution. But according to UBS Global Wealth CIO Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, the next big leap won’t come from hardware — it’ll come from AI agents, GPUs, and grid-scale infrastructure.
In other words: The next $10 trillion company won’t be selling you a phone.
It’ll be selling you intelligence.
AI Isn’t Just a Tech Upgrade — It’s an Industrial Shift
Hoffmann-Burchardi argues that AI, alongside electrification and longevity science, represents a foundational transformation — a moment on par with the internet, the assembly line, or even electricity itself.
And like those past revolutions, it won’t just change how we live. It will change who leads the global economy.
According to UBS, the company that masters AI agents (autonomous programs that can think, decide, and act), paired with advanced chips and massive compute infrastructure, could unlock economies of scale the world has never seen.
This isn’t just about building better products. It’s about building the systems that build the future.
From Smartphones to Smart Infrastructure
To put it into perspective:
- Apple built its empire by reinventing the phone.
- The next giant will build an empire by reinventing cognition.
AI agents could automate everything from personal assistants to enterprise workflows. GPUs and specialized chips will fuel the processing power needed. And whoever owns the infrastructure that supports this — data centers, power grids, compute clouds — could end up controlling the next generation of value creation.
As UBS puts it: “This is the dawn of the agent economy.”
You can check out the original summary from Techpresso here.
Quick Q&A: What People Are Asking
1. Why does UBS believe AI could create a $10T company?
UBS sees AI as a foundational platform shift, similar to the industrial or internet revolutions. They believe the combination of AI agents, powerful chips, and infrastructure will unlock unprecedented economic potential — creating a company even bigger than Apple or Microsoft today.
2. What’s an AI agent, and why does it matter?
An AI agent is an autonomous system that can perceive, reason, and act in complex environments — think of it like a supercharged, decision-making assistant. These agents could transform industries from healthcare to finance, replacing or augmenting entire workflows.
Do you think AI will build the next trillion-dollar empire — or destabilize the ones we already have?
Drop your thoughts in the comments.
Want more high-impact stories like this one? Sign up for our AI Newsletter — your shortcut to understanding what’s shaping the future (and who’s getting rich from it).
Building something at the intersection of AI, infrastructure, or investment? Click here to explore our consulting services — we help innovators go from insight to impact.
