AI Continues to Attract Dollars: Absorbing Over Half of Global Venture Capital Investment

As new questions arise regarding the uncontrolled advance of artificial intelligence, venture capital funds continue to invest increasingly larger amounts of money in this segment.

In July 2026, startups worldwide received $65 billion in investment, double that of July last year and the third largest monthly volume of the year, according to a survey by the predictive intelligence platform Crunchbase.

Of that total, $35 billion, equivalent to 53%, was allocated to companies focused on artificial intelligence.

The month also marked a record for the number of extraordinary scale operations: 14 startups raised rounds of at least $1 billion, the highest number recorded in a single month.

Nine of those companies are based in the United States, two in Germany, two in China, and one in Singapore.

Overall, the result confirms that the venture capital market has entered a stage dominated by so-called mega-rounds, where funds concentrate their bets on companies they believe can become category leaders.

The largest operation in July was not strictly AI-related: Blue Origin, the space company of Jeff Bezos, received $10 billion in what was its first round of external financing.

But immediately behind it was one of the operations that best reflects the appetite for the new generation of AI companies: Safe Superintelligence, the lab created by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, secured about $5 billion, with participation from Nvidia.

The third place went to Moonshot AI, the Chinese lab behind the Kimi family of AI models, which raised $3.5 billion after launching its new Kimi K3 model.

It was followed by Kling AI, also from China, with a round of $2.8 billion aimed at developing its short video generation technology.

Venture Investment Sets Records

The numbers from the first half of the year had already anticipated this scenario. According to a report by KPMG, global venture capital accumulated $560.4 billion during the first six months of 2026.

This was the highest level in five years and was close to the annual record of $750.9 billion reached in 2021.

In the second quarter alone, $227.4 billion was invested in 8,440 operations, and the ten largest transactions concentrated $105 billion.

The largest was the $65 billion round for Anthropic, followed by Prometheus with $12 billion, and DeepSeek with about $7.4 billion.

In July, moreover, money began to flow throughout the entire AI value chain. The energy infrastructure startup Joulent received funding of around $1.75 billion, while other companies linked to computing infrastructure, chips, and data centers also captured large-scale operations.

In parallel, Helsing and Quantum Systems, both German and linked to the development of defense technology, surpassed the threshold of $1 billion, a sign that tech capital is beginning to converge with the race for military autonomy.

Investment and Revenue Do Not Grow at the Same Rate

The concentration of funds allocated to technology, especially AI, has a downside. While AI companies captured 53% of global venture capital in July, other tech segments are left competing for a much smaller share of the funds.

But this also feeds a basic contradiction in the implementation of artificial intelligence among companies: revenue growth does not keep pace with the speed at which investments are increasing.

This is precisely one of the main questions the sector has faced in recent weeks.

In financial markets, concerns have begun to grow over the possibility that spending by major tech companies on AI infrastructure is advancing faster than their ability to generate returns.

An analysis by Reuters noted that some investors are positioning themselves for a potential slowdown in spending by major cloud providers, while concerns about valuations of chip-related companies and the sustainability of their revenues are increasing.

The problem is not only stock-related. Fitch warned at the end of July that the AI boom and the risk of a market correction are becoming relevant risks for global credit, precisely because tech valuations and the volume of investment in infrastructure are growing at a pace that could outstrip future returns.

A warning signal was triggered from Alphabet, the owner of Google. The company recorded a negative cash flow of $5.9 billion during the second quarter while significantly increasing its investments to sustain the AI race.

AI Continues to Face Scrutiny

While investment continues to grow, criticism of the implementation of artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly frequent and encompasses diverse approaches, from accounting logic to issues of social and environmental impact.

Just a week ago, over 1,200 employees from major U.S. tech companies, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, among others, signed a document demanding the government halt uncontrolled development of artificial intelligence, regulate the sector, and prevent technology from surpassing human control capacity.

Specifically, they asked Donald Trump to lead an "international effort to develop the technical and governance tools necessary to deliberately pace the development of automated AI."

"To harness the potential of AI, industry, governments, and society at large may need the opportunity to buy time to address emerging risks, develop safety measures, and strengthen oversight," the document states.

The discussion has also moved to the energy sector. The International Energy Agency estimates that an AI-oriented data center can consume as much electricity as about 100,000 homes, while the largest complexes currently under construction could demand up to 20 times that amount.

Another area of concern is related to employment. The discussion has shifted from focusing exclusively on professions that could disappear to also addressing how companies are reorganizing their structures.

In 2026, numerous companies announced staff reductions related to automation, efficiency, and the incorporation of AI tools, fueling the debate over whether productivity gains will ultimately create new jobs or, conversely, displace a significant number of jobs.{#p-1785951047829-11411}

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