Exponential View Reports 82% Of AI Value In Infrastructure

AI Times Korea cited an Exponential View report showing that cloud, GPU and inference infrastructure captured the largest measured share of the generative AI economy, even as model developers remain the most visible companies in the sector.

The Korean technology outlet said Exponential View's State of the AI Economy 2026 report measured where value accrues across the AI stack, including infrastructure, foundation models and applications.

Exponential View put 82% of captured AI-economy value in the hosting layer in the first quarter of 2026, according to AI Times Korea.

The hosting layer includes cloud services, GPUs and inference infrastructure.

For the most recent 12 months, generative AI recorded $110 billion in actual revenue, AI Times Korea said.

It also said the annualised revenue run rate had expanded to $175 billion, framing generative AI as a fast-growing enterprise technology market rather than only a consumer chatbot trend.

Foundation Models Account For 11% In The Report

The Exponential View report assigned 11% of measured value to the foundation-model layer, including companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, according to AI Times Korea.

The application layer accounted for the remaining 7%, according to the same article.

User payments for ChatGPT-like services still push much of the economic value towards GPUs, data centres and cloud operations needed to serve models at scale, the outlet said.

Applications increased from a 4% share a year earlier to 7% in the latest period.

AI Times Korea linked the increase to growth in AI agents, coding tools and enterprise AI services that perform work on top of foundation models.

FT Questions Model-Company Valuations

AI Times Korea also referenced Financial Times commentary on possible OpenAI and Anthropic listings.

The Financial Times commentary cited research, development, GPU investment and cloud spending as costs that could make durable profitability harder to prove.

The Korean outlet wrote that the Exponential View report was analysing value across the whole AI industry, not publishing financial statements for individual companies.

That means the foundation-model layer figure should not be read as a direct company-level share for OpenAI or Anthropic.

OpenAI and Anthropic operate services beyond foundation models, including ChatGPT, Claude, enterprise AI services and API platforms, AI Times Korea said.

Their revenue can therefore sit across model, application and platform layers rather than only inside the foundation-model category.

Narrower performance gaps between advanced models could also shift competition towards enterprise services, AI agents and productivity platforms, according to the outlet.

The valuation debate stays tied to disclosed model economics rather than a claim that foundation-model companies have already lost customer demand.

OpenAI Infrastructure Costs Remain A Missing Company-Level Figure

AI Times Korea said OpenAI is pursuing the Stargate project and in-house chip development as ways to lower infrastructure costs and increase supply-chain control.

The outlet described those moves as part of the broader pressure created by compute and hosting costs.

AI Times Korea did not identify OpenAI or Anthropic profit figures, cash-flow figures, named customers, infrastructure-spending totals, IPO schedules, exact Stargate spending commitments or measured cost reductions from in-house chip work.