The boom in artificial intelligence is creating a record number of rich people

Record rise in wealth

The wealth of billionaires grew by an average of 25 percent in the year ending in April, according to research by the Swiss bank UBS. For comparison, the average personal wealth in the world increased by 10.8 percent. The number of billionaires jumped by 13 percent to a record 3,302 people. Other sources, such as the annual Forbes magazine list, state even higher numbers, with a total of 3,428 billionaires in 2026, which is 400 more than the year before. Their combined wealth is estimated at a whopping $20.1 trillion. UBS data shows that there are 18 people in the world who have accumulated a fortune between 50 and 100 billion dollars, while another 19 people own more than 100 billion dollars. Along with billionaires, the millionaire class is also expanding rapidly. UBS found that the global population of millionaires reached more than 57.5 million last year. This was contributed by the growing stock market and, since the value is measured in US dollars, the relatively weak dollar last year.

Artificial intelligence as a factory of billionaires

At the center of this trend is artificial intelligence. James Mazeau, an economist at the Swiss bank, said billionaires have profited from the boom in artificial intelligence in the stock market.

​- Većina bogatstva [milijardera] it is related to companies listed on the stock exchange. Therefore, part of the increase is a consequence of the growth of the stock market –

​- About the boom in artificial intelligence driving the stock market. In countries where there is a large participation and stock market, this leads to an increase in wealth –

In the last year alone, artificial intelligence has created 45 new billionaires. There are now at least 86 billionaires whose wealth is directly linked to AI companies, infrastructure and services, and their combined assets exceed $2.9 trillion. This wave of wealth is not limited to the founders of large software companies. The boom has engulfed the entire ecosystem, from chip manufacturers like Nvidia to companies specializing in annotating the data needed to train AI models. The shares of the manufacturer of semiconductors and memory chips recorded a huge growth, and for example, the wealth of Jensen Huang, co-founder of Nvidia, rose to more than 160 billion dollars.

Global distribution and deepening of the gap

The United States is home to a record 989 billionaires, including 15 of the 20 richest people in the world. It is followed by China with 610 and India with 229 billionaires, according to Forbes. The top of the list of the richest continues to be dominated by technology leaders. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, is the richest person in the world with a net worth of one trillion dollars. He is followed by the co-founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, with a net worth of 289 billion and 266.6 billion dollars, respectively.

These data come as the gap between the world’s richest and poorest continues to grow. Last year’s World Inequality Report found that fewer than 60,000 people – 0.001 percent of the world’s population – control three times as much wealth as the bottom half of the population. Economists warn that artificial intelligence could further accelerate the trend of wealth concentration in the hands of a small number of people. That is why calls to political leaders to increase taxes on the super-rich are becoming louder around the world, amid concerns that the richest in society are also buying political power.

The British case: The decline in the number of billionaires

While the global number of billionaires is growing, the United Kingdom is seeing the opposite trend. In 2025, there were 156 billionaires in the UK, the biggest drop in the 37-year history of the Sunday Times Rich List, compared to 165 a year earlier. Reported flights of the super-rich from Britain have also multiplied in the past year, with many wealth advisers attributing the trend to the abolition of the non-dom tax regime.

However, Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS, believes that many reports across Europe exaggerate the movement of rich people.

​- This is a relatively small total, and some of them have returned later. But what you don’t see is them closing their businesses and relocating their operations. The economic activity created by wealth owners usually does not follow them into a tax exodus –

​- The idea that the rich have their suitcases packed by the door, ready to leave at the first sign of a tax increase, just doesn’t happen –