The AI Boom Creates a Record Number of Billionaires

Metaverse Planet August 13, 2025Last Updated: August 13, 2025

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The explosion in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly increasing the number of “unicorn” companies, and those who succeed in this area are significantly growing their fortunes. The number of new billionaires is hitting a record high.

While the boom in AI is causing tens of thousands of people to lose their jobs, it is also making a select group of people incredibly wealthy. This “gold rush” of 2025 has turned into an AI boom, creating a record number of billionaires.

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AI Companies are Becoming Unicorns at an Unprecedented Pace

According to data from CB Insights, 53 companies have become “unicorns” since the beginning of 2025, meaning they have reached a valuation of $1 billion as new startups. More than half of these new unicorns are AI companies. This AI boom is also accelerating the pace at which companies are reaching unicorn status.

Executives of AI Companies Are Growing Their Fortunes

The fact that the value of AI companies is now measured in billions of dollars has led to an explosion in the number of new billionaires. In just the last 18 months, 29 new billionaires have emerged. This number is even higher when you include individuals who have not yet officially achieved billionaire status because their shareholdings are not fully public.

Senior executives from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity are among these new billionaires. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic; Mira Murati and Ilya Sutskever, who founded their own AI companies after leaving OpenAI; and Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI, are some of the individuals whose personal wealth has reached billions of dollars.

Since Nvidia has been the biggest beneficiary of this boom, Jensen Huang, the company’s CEO, has seen the largest increase in his personal wealth. According to Bloomberg data, Huang’s personal fortune has reached $159 billion, making him the eighth richest person in the world. Huang has added $44 billion to his wealth this year alone. As Nvidia’s rise continues, Huang’s fortune is expected to grow even larger.

This trend emerging from Silicon Valley confirms the predictions of significant returns from the rise of AI, while also providing a clearer understanding of how these gains are being distributed.