AI Vocabulary · 02 AI Infrastructure
What is Hyperscaler?
One of the few tech giants that run data centres at enormous scale and rent out computing power, storage and AI services.
"Hyperscaler" is industry shorthand for the companies that build and operate data centres at the largest scale. Most of them also rent that capacity out as cloud computing. There is no official definition, and lists vary.
In April 2026, Epoch AI counted five: Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle. By its estimate they owned 71 percent of the world's AI computing power at the end of 2025, up from 63 percent in early 2024. Meta is on the list for its own data centres, even though it does not sell cloud services.
The UK competition authority CMA noted in 2023 that Microsoft, Amazon and Google own key infrastructure for producing and distributing foundation models. Many AI developers without their own compute rent it from these cloud providers.
Why it matters for you
Even if you use a smaller AI company's product, it very likely runs on a hyperscaler's infrastructure. Their prices, outages and terms reach you indirectly.
Own it
Find out which cloud your AI tools run on and where. Avoid building everything on one provider's proprietary services if you might want to move later (vendor lock-in).
Where it comes from
The term came from the data centre industry and has no single author. The share figures come from Epoch AI, Five hyperscalers now own over two-thirds of global AI compute (14 April 2026), measured in H100 equivalents. The CMA observation is from its AI Foundation Models: Initial report (18 September 2023), which speaks of "cloud service providers".
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