Beyond The Data Center: Goldman's Silicon Valley Field Trip Finds AI Moving From Chips To Workflows

Goldman analysts led by George Tong returned to Silicon Valley for their second AI field trip, meeting with AI startups, public companies, VCs, and professors from Stanford, UCSF, and UC Berkeley to assess whether corporate America is truly embracing generative AI. The visit comes as record AI capex fuels record hyperscale data center buildouts nationwide, while investors search for clues on whether the adoption phase will materialize: a shift beyond infrastructure into the application layer.

"Insights indicate AI labs are expanding from the infrastructure layer to the application layer and LLM costs are sharply declining though capex may continue to rise as Gen AI usage and adoption grows," Tong wrote in a note to clients on Friday.