San Francisco, AI capital of the world, is an economic laggard

Apr 26th 2026|San Francisco|4 min read

NOWHERE IN HISTORY has created so much wealth so quickly. San Francisco is home to OpenAI and Anthropic, the two leading artificial-intelligence labs together worth nearly $2trn, based on some recent valuations. It hosts 91 other AI “unicorns”, private companies worth more than $1bn, collectively valued at a further $600bn. A dozen or so billionaires who made their money from AI live in the city. Competition for the cleverest computer-science clogs is fierce. Why, then, is the world’s AI central struggling?