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THE AI ECOSYSTEM

  • Writer: Fernanda Bezerril
    Fernanda Bezerril
  • Sep 18
  • 1 min read

The AI ecosystem is consolidating — but where do startups truly fit in?


The landscape shows that AI has permeated the entire value chain, creating a strategic paradox for startups:


The infographic titled "THE AI ECOSYSTEM" presents a circular diagram that divides the Artificial Intelligence ecosystem into five key sectors: "FOUNDATIONAL MODELS", "GEN AI APPLICATIONS", "COMPUTE", "CHIPS", and "DATA". 1. FOUNDATIONAL MODELS This section lists companies that develop core AI models, including: Microsoft, OpenAI, ANTHROPIC, Mistral AI, Baidu (百度), cohere, Google, NVIDIA, Hugging Face, contextual.ai, Meta AI, and xAI. 2. GEN AI APPLICATIONS This section lists end-user AI applications, such as: WESTLAW EDGE, AXcoder, thematic, fotor, grammarly, LinguiX, KAEDIM, Photoroom, Galileo AI, Synthesia, voiseed, Listnr, REPLICA, PAPERCUP, and duplub. 3. COMPUTE This section lists companies providing cloud computing infrastructure and related services, including: DELL, IBM, aws, Microsoft Azure, ORACLE, CoreWeave, CYSO, Alibaba Cloud, Google Cloud, Salesforce, HUAWEI, Genesis Cloud, TENSORWAVE, FluidStack, EXOSCALE, and Tencent (腾讯). 4. CHIPS This section lists AI hardware manufacturers and developers, including: tenstorrent, intel., NVIDIA, aws, IBM, Apple, Qualcomm, AMD, and Cerebras. 5. DATA This section lists companies focused on data and infrastructure, such as: scale, databricks, prodigy, HumanFirst, WarpStream, upstash, momento, Pinecone, Labelbox, and Snorkel. The source of the diagram is credited as "Source: ACT | The App Association"

On one hand, infrastructure has never been more accessible — with scalable cloud, optimized chips, and open APIs accelerating product development. On the other, competition with big tech has never been more direct, as the same players providing the backbone (OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and NVIDIA) are also launching end-market solutions.


The next wave of value in AI won’t come solely from building more powerful models. It will come from startups solving sector-specific pain points in healthcare, finance, education, and industry — embedding AI in ways that are invisible, yet essential.



THE AI ECOSYSTEM



By DealMaker Insights | DealMaker

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