$2.3 trillion in AI capex has been committed since 2017, and Morgan Stanley Investment Management says investor attention has to move with it. The firm says the supply chain has already pushed past chips into power, memory, networking and cooling, while token consumption grew by more than 10 times in 2025 alone.
That change leaves investors with a narrower task than following every new product launch: identify which layer becomes indispensable next before the market does. MSIM says the pace is fast enough that history offers no reliable template for compounding at this rate.
MSIM's 10 investor truths
Morgan Stanley Investment Management outlined 10 key truths about AI that investors should know, framing the theme as a cross-sector trade rather than a single-chip story. The firm said data centers are modern-day factories and tokens are the output, a shift that turns usage into the operating metric investors need to track.
$2 trillion in software value was built on licensing seats, but MSIM said the next chapter will be built on consuming tokens. That shift points to recurring revenue tied to inference, orchestration, applications and workflows, not just to the purchase of software seats.
250 times by 2028
250 times more powerful by 2028 is the projection MSIM attached to AI systems at the current rate. The firm also said AI is a revolutionary restructuring of how work gets done, moving from reactive tools toward autonomous systems that can operate across tasks rather than simply answer prompts.
2025's more than 10-fold jump in token consumption helps explain why the bottlenecks keep moving. Chips came first, then power, memory, networking and cooling; the pressure has spread because usage is outrunning the old parts of the stack.
Where the next value sits
MSIM said the semiconductor story is no longer about who makes the best chip. "The semiconductor story is no longer about who makes the best chip" and "It is about which layer of the supply chain becomes indispensable next. For investors, identifying that layer before consensus is the opportunity."
That leaves the practical question for investors: where does the durable spend land after the first wave of chip demand? MSIM says the next wave of value will come from AI usage, including inference, orchestration, applications and workflows that offer more durable recurring revenue opportunities, while AI begins to operate the economy through robotics, autonomous vehicles, drones and industrial automation.
