The Epoch Brief - May 22, 2026
Epoch AI’s latest data insight shows high‑bandwidth memory now accounts for 63% of AI‑chip component spending, up from 52% in early 2024, with total HBM outlays climbing to roughly $32 billion in 2025. In a Gradient Update, researcher Josh You argues that today’s leading frontier labs use less than half of global AI compute but could absorb most of the remaining headroom within a few years, after which chip supply will become the bottleneck for further scaling. The firm also announced the kickoff of its FrontierMath: Open Problems workshops in New York and other major cities, inviting mathematicians to propose verifiable research challenges. Additionally, Epoch AI is hiring for design, research, and data‑science roles.
Diversion and Resale: Estimating Compute Smuggling to China
Epoch AI’s new report estimates that between 290,000 and 1.6 million Nvidia H100‑equivalent chips were smuggled into China by the end of 2025, with a median of 660,000 chips – roughly 3% of the world’s AI compute stockpile. The analysis draws...
GPT-5.5 Pro Achieves a New High Score on the ECI
Epoch AI reports that its GPT‑5.5 Pro has set a new record on the Epoch Capabilities Index, achieving the highest score to date. The model also improved its FrontierMath benchmark, reaching 52 % accuracy on Tiers 1‑3 and 40 % on Tier 4, up...
Claude Usage Rose by over 40% Amid Increased Attention Last Month, but Remains Far Behind ChatGPT
Claude, Anthropic’s AI chatbot, saw US usage jump over 40% in March, climbing from 2.96% to a peak of 4.38% before settling at 4.27% in early April. The surge translates to several million new weekly users, according to the poll’s...
Five Hyperscalers Now Own over Two-Thirds of Global AI Compute
Five hyperscalers—Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Oracle—now command roughly two‑thirds of the world’s AI compute capacity, up from about 60% at the start of 2024. The share increase reflects continued investment in custom silicon and massive data‑center expansions. AI labs...
Google Controls the Most AI Computing Power, Driven by Its Custom TPUs
Google now controls about 25% of all AI compute sold since 2022, with roughly 75% of that capacity delivered by its custom‑designed Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). This makes Google the single largest owner of AI‑focused hardware, while other hyperscalers continue...
The Epoch Brief - March 2026
Epoch AI’s March 2026 brief highlights three new Data Insights, including a 4.1× annual rise in AI chip memory bandwidth now at 70 million TB/s, and reveals that advanced packaging and high‑bandwidth memory, not logic dies, constrained chip production in 2025. A...
Total AI Chip Memory Bandwidth Has Grown 4.1x per Year, Now Reaching 70 Million TB/S
AI chip memory bandwidth has accelerated to 70 million terabytes per second, representing a 4.1× annual growth since 2022. This capacity dwarfs global internet traffic by a factor of roughly 300,000, highlighting the massive data movement required for modern inference. The...
What Do Frontier AI Companies' Job Postings Reveal About Their Plans?
Analysis of job postings at leading AI labs reveals a sharp shift toward go‑to‑market roles. At OpenAI and Anthropic, sales‑related positions have risen to roughly 30% of all openings, while research hires have fallen below 10%. The postings also expose...
Final Training Runs Account for a Minority of R&D Compute Spending
The analysis shows that final training runs represent only a minority of AI R&D compute spending. Across OpenAI, MiniMax and Z.ai, final runs account for 9.6%, 22.6% and 12.3% of total compute respectively. OpenAI’s 2024 R&D compute bill was about...
First AI Solution on FrontierMath: Open Problems
A team led by Kevin Barreto and Liam Price coaxed GPT‑5.4 Pro into solving a Ramsey‑hypergraph conjecture that has been open since a 2019 paper by Will Brian and Paul Larson. The solution marks the first AI‑generated answer on the...
Microsoft’s Recent $68 Billion in Physical Assets Additions Were Driven by AI-Related Purchases
Microsoft reported a $68 billion increase in property, plant and equipment during the second half of 2025, nearly matching the total addition recorded in the previous full fiscal year. The bulk of the spend—57%—went to IT hardware such as GPUs and...