Despite what some consultants have characterised as an setting more and more hostile to AI R&D, North America continues to obtain the majority of AI enterprise {dollars}, in keeping with information from funding tracker PitchBook.
Between February and May of this yr, VCs poured $69.7 billion into North America-based AI and machine studying startups throughout 1,528 offers. That’s in contrast with $6.4 billion that VC companies invested in European AI ventures throughout 742 offers throughout the identical interval.
Asia-based startups have fared a bit worse than their European counterparts, in keeping with PitchBook. Between February and May, VCs invested simply $3 billion in Asia-based AI startups throughout 515 offers.
Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has dramatically reduce funding to scientific grants associated to fundamental AI analysis, made it harder for international college students specializing in AI to check within the U.S., and threatened to dismantle university-housed AI labs by freezing billions of {dollars} in federal funds. The administration’s commerce insurance policies, in the meantime, together with its retaliatory tariffs, have led to a chaotic market unfavorable for dangerous new AI ventures.
In a publish on X in March, AI pioneer and Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton referred to as for billionaire Elon Musk, who till not too long ago suggested Trump’s cost-cutting group, the Department of Government Efficiency, to be expelled from the British Royal Society “due to the large injury he’s doing to scientific establishments within the U.S.”
One may count on that Europe, which has pledged to turn out to be a worldwide chief in AI, would entice extra enterprise capital in mild of Trump’s controversial insurance policies within the U.S., which have created uncertainty and confusion for founders, traders, and researchers alike. Moreover, the EU has dedicated lots of of billions of euros to assist the event of AI inside its member nations and already has a variety of profitable, well-funded AI startups in its ranks (see Mistral, H, and Aleph Alpha, to call just a few).
But that anticipated shift in international funding hasn’t come to cross. There isn’t any signal of a mass VC exodus to the bloc, or of great upticks in AI funding abroad — at the very least not but.
The similar is true for China, which has spawned high-profile AI startups like DeepSeek and Butterfly Effect — the corporate behind the agentic platform Manus — however the place VC exercise within the nation and the broader Asian area stays comparatively austere. (Export controls impacting the flexibility of sure Asian nations to acquire AI chips are nearly actually an element.)
In 2024, North American startups secured 75.6% of all VC AI funding — $106.24 billion. That share has solely elevated this yr. So far in 2025, North American AI investments characterize 86.2% ($79.74 billion) of all VC funding for AI globally.
It paints a considerably stunning image. Even amid mounting political and regulatory headwinds below Trump’s second time period, the U.S. stays the undisputed heart for AI capital, that means traders, fatigued as they might be by the administration’s unpredictability, are nonetheless relying on U.S. innovation to ship the largest returns, at the very least for now.
