Financial Times reporters consider the rise of “sovereign” artificial intelligence, the prospects for electric car sales and whether the “masters of the universe” will be investing your pension savings, in our survey of business trends in the year ahead.

Technology

Trend to watch

The short history of generative artificial intelligence has been shaped by the race between a handful of companies to build the ever-powerful large language models at the heart of the technology. But in 2025, generative AI is set to move from “deeper” to “wider”, as more countries — and companies — look to take control of what they see as a strategically important technology.

Under the banner of “sovereign AI”, many countries have already set out to build the supercomputers and AI models that will be needed. Safeguarding their economic and national security is a major motivation. About 10 per cent of Nvidia’s revenue already comes from selling chips to countries seeking to build their own AI infrastructure. That figure is likely to rise as more governments decide AI has become a technology they cannot ignore.