The great data delusion — where to invest for AI winners

The dominant narrative around artificial intelligence (AI) is simple: more AI means more data, more storage, more data centres — an endless, exponential buildout. New data is expected to multiply at a compound annual growth rate of 24% through 2028. Adding to the apparent chaos, much of this data is expected to be “unstructured” (see Chart 1) — that is, information without a predefined schema; or information that, absent further processing, is effectively and predominantly unusable.