Global Scans · Artificial Intelligence · Weekly Summary

• [New] AI inference, the everyday running of models, is expected to overtake training as the main workload around 2027. Thunderbird Products
• [New] PwC's survey of global manufacturing leaders shows AI, automation, and advanced technologies moving rapidly from experimentation to scale, with tech enablement and automation set to more than double by 2030. PwC
• [New] Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta are expected to spend more than $700bn on AI infrastructure in 2026, while Britain is competing to attract new data centers and computing capacity. City AM
• [New] Blockbuster results from Microsoft Corp. helped lift investor expectations that the buildout of AI infrastructure and related productivity gains will keep pushing stocks higher. financialpost
• [New] Regulation should focus on capability, risk and enforceable controls rather than model openness alone, while recognising that resilient institutions must adapt to a world where powerful AI tools are widely available. Mishcon de Reya LLP
• [New] 2027 will mark a turning point where AI permanently alters industry and daily life. Daily Star
• [New] Enterprise AI spend crossed $2.5 trillion globally this year, and Gartner expects 40% of enterprise applications to run task-specific AI agents by December, up from under 5% just twelve months ago. Easy Comm
• [New] Agentic AI is moving from pilots to production, with nearly 40% of enterprise apps expected to embed task-specific agents by end of 2026 but weak governance is the top reason projects get cancelled. Easy Comm
• [New] According to the IBM IBV 2026 Tech Leader Study: Building the IT foundation for agentic AI at scale, by 2027, enterprises expect to deploy an average of 1,661 AI agents - a 38% increase. IBM Newsroom
• [New] The next decade will be filled with debates over which companies dominate artificial intelligence. investing.com
• [New] Following the private banking roll-out, OCBC plans to extend the agentic AI platform to its Premier Private Client segment by year end. ST
• [New] Amazon is focused on building infrastructure that will grow its core AWS business as well as expanding its AI business. tradingkey.com
• [New] Two nearly trillion-dollar AI companies, ChatGPT developer OpenAI and Claude creator Anthropic, are expected to go public soon, making hundreds of current and former employees ultrawealthy. Wired
• [New] Google's Gemini models will be available in Oracle AI Agent Studio, where customers and partners can build Fusion-native agents and agentic applications. theregister
• [New] The US government will spend US$ 5 billion on a new AI research initiative that includes the development of longer-lasting building materials. Last Week in ConTech
• [New] AI has become a central risk theme in 2026, moving from experimentation to embedded capability across financial services. Kaizen Recruitment
• [New] Cloud service adoption among South Korean enterprises surpassed 70% in 2023, creating a compounding demand effect on national data center capacity requirements, with AI training and inference workloads projected to account for an increasingly significant share of total compute demand through 2033. Persistence Market Research
• The NCSC and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are leading the blueprint for Cyber Shield, which aims to use frontier AI to identify, reduce, and resolve national cyber risks at machine speed. UKAuthority
• The Cabinet Office will lead AI adoption across the civil service. UKAuthority
• By 2030, Pakistan aims to train more than 2 million AI professionals, develop 10,000 trainers and educators, introduce AI education from school to university, establish AI centers of excellence, create a national AI fund, and strengthen university-industry collaboration. United Nations
• The world will need $5.2 tn in AI-specific data center investment by 2030. IMD business school for management and leadership cours
• The growing use of AI in warfare poses a much bigger threat to the future of the UK than the latest advances in frontier AI models, experts have told City AM. City AM

Last updated: 03 August 2026