AI Spending Is Surging. These Job Types Are at Risk, Say CIOs.

Microsoft store in New York City. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg)

The demand for artificial-intelligence hardware continues to grow, and could lead to job cuts in some fields.

On Wednesday, two major Wall Street firms released reports based on surveys of chief information officers, or CIOs, at corporations that suggest rising spending plans for AI infrastructure.

Banks periodically survey the executives in charge of the technology purse strings at large companies to get insights on budget trends.

Morgan Stanley’s technology team said AI tops the priority list for projects that will see the largest spending increase, adding that 60% of CIOs expect to have AI projects in production by year end.

In similar fashion, Piper Sandler analyst James Fish noted 93% of CIOs plan to increase spending on AI infrastructure this year with 48% saying they will increase spending significantly by more than 25% versus last year.

The Piper Sandler team said this is good news for the major cloud computing vendors—including Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, Amazon.com’s Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud by Alphabet.

Nvidia will also benefit as the leading supplier of AI chips and AI servers. Nvidia is the “clear leader with the vast majority of the market,” semiconductor analyst Harsh Kumar wrote, adding the chip maker is the “Top Pick” under his coverage.

In early trading Thursday, Nvidia stock was up 0.1% to $163.01.

More than half the CIOs in Piper Sandler’s survey did admit the rise of AI made certain jobs more vulnerable for headcount cuts. The categories most at risk in order are IT administration, sales, customer support, and IT help desks.

Write to Tae Kim at tae.kim@barrons.com