California is reportedly seeing an historic wave of investment due to Silicon Valley\u2019s artificial intelligence (AI) boom.<\/p>\n
Companies there have taken in around $366 billion in venture capital this year, with just two artificial intelligence (AI) firms\u2014OpenAI<\/a> and Anthropic<\/a>\u2014accounting for half that total, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported<\/a> Thursday (Aug. 20), citing Pitchbook data.<\/p>\n The report said the $366 billion figure is more than three times the amount of venture capital<\/a> (VC) funding that has funneled into the other 49 states this year put together, and almost double California\u2019s previous record, set last year.<\/p>\n OpenAI in March raised $122 billion, the largest funding round<\/a> in the history of Silicon Valley, while Anthropic has taken in $95 billion in two rounds of financing.<\/p>\n In all, more than 4,000 California-based startups have raised money this year, the WSJ added, again citing Pitchbook figures. Not all of them were AI companies: defense manufacturing company Hadrian Automatic<\/a> raised $1.37 billion<\/a> and live commerce platform Whatnot<\/a> raised $545 million<\/a>, both rounds announced earlier this month.<\/p>\n The WSJ noted that it\u2019s not unusual for new technologies to \u201cagglomerate\u201d\u2014or concentrate\u2014around one geographic area, such as the automotive industry in Detroit. But what\u2019s happening in Silicon Valley is a different case, economist Enrico Moretti<\/a> told the WSJ.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an amount of agglomeration that surpasses even previous waves,\u201d said Moretti, who is based at the University of California at Berkeley<\/a>, and who studies the geography of jobs.<\/p>\n He said the phenomenon illustrates\u2014as the WSJ puts it\u2014\u201cthe extraordinary returns to creativity and innovation,\u201d which research indicates can be strengthened when people work in proximity and share ideas.<\/p>\n Moretti added that a \u201cthick\u201d labor market of people with specialized skills, and companies that need those workers with those abilities, helps as well.<\/p>\n In other AI news, recent PYMNTS Intelligence research examines levels of enterprise adoption across a variety of industries, finding that it is not happening evenly within organizations.<\/p>\n According to data shared in the August edition of The Enterprise AI Benchmark Report<\/a>, the most important dividing line might not be a question of industry, budget constraints or even enthusiasm among executives.<\/p>\n