AI-related firms now about 45% of the S&P 500’s market cap
- Goldman Sachs research circulated this week says companies tied to artificial intelligence now make up nearly 45% of the S&P 500’s market value, up from about 25% in late 2022. - The same Wall Street discussion has shifted to credit markets: AI-related issuers sold $141 billion of corporate debt in 2025, while AI-linked investment-grade debt has been cited near $1.4 trillion. - J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs have both framed the trade as unusually concentrated, with returns, earnings and capital spending increasingly clustered in a narrow AI cohort. (am.jpmorgan.com)
Artificial intelligence-linked companies now account for nearly 45% of the S&P 500’s market capitalization, according to research highlighted this week by Goldman Sachs. (msn.com) That share was about 25% in late 2022, around the time OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public. The jump means a theme that was once concentrated in semiconductor names now reaches across megacap cloud, software and infrastructure stocks. (msn.com) (goldmansachs.com) Goldman Sachs said investors have started to split the group into winners and laggards. It said money has rotated away from some infrastructure companies where earnings growth is under pressure and capital spending is being financed with debt. (goldmansachs.com) The spending behind the trade is still climbing. Goldman Sachs said Wall Street analysts now estimate 2026 capital expenditure by large artificial intelligence hyperscalers at $527 billion, up from $465 billion at the start of the third-quarter earnings season. (goldmansachs.com) Credit markets are carrying more of that build-out. A Goldman Sachs note cited by Yahoo Finance said AI-related issuers accounted for $141 billion of corporate credit issuance in 2025 to date, above full-year 2024 supply of $127 billion. (finance.yahoo.com) J.P. Morgan has described the equity concentration in even starker terms. Its 2026 outlook said 42 AI-related companies generated 65% to 75% of S&P 500 returns, profits and capital spending since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022. (am.jpmorgan.com) That same J.P. Morgan report said the market value of four hyperscalers and the semiconductor ecosystem around them grew from $3 trillion to $18 trillion in just a few years. It warned that power constraints, China competition, Taiwan risk and pressure on hyperscaler profits could test the trade next. (am.jpmorgan.com) Goldman Sachs is not arguing that every AI stock rises together from here. Its December 18, 2025 note said investors are rewarding companies that can show a direct link between artificial intelligence spending and revenue, especially large cloud platform operators. (goldmansachs.com) The result is a stock index that is more exposed to one investment theme than it was before ChatGPT. If that theme keeps delivering revenue, the concentration can hold; if sentiment breaks, the index has fewer places to hide. (msn.com) (goldmansachs.com)
