TIME’s Person of the Year was Made in California
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Dec 12, 2025

TIME's Person of the Year was Made in California

What you need to know: Trump administration, take notice: TIME's announcement recognized California as the global epicenter of AI innovation.

SACRAMENTO – California is home to the world's leading AI companies and research institutions. The Golden State leads and dominates in AI innovation, trust and safety standards, and workforce development – creating the model for how California can promote the AI industry to drive progress while simultaneously protecting people and their privacy. This year, TIME recognized the breakthrough these collective companies made as their "Person of the Year" as these "Architects of AI" graced the cover!

This year made one thing unmistakably clear, AI is rewriting the possibilities of our time. And once again, California is showing what's possible when innovation, public purpose, and common sense safeguards move together. We are ensuring the future we build is safer, smarter, and works for everyone. As has long been the case, the future happens here, first.

Governor Gavin Newsom

Meet the architects of AI who call California home – creating the future:

1. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, $5 trillion – The man who is powering the majority of the world's AI with NVIDIA chips knows that California is where the future gets built.

2. Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, $350 billion – Lisa Su's leadership at Advanced Micro Devices continues to push the limits of AI – progress made possible because California set the stage for this revolution.

3. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, $3.87 trillion – Sundar Pichai is helping chart Google's path in AI, progress made possible by the innovative ecosystem California has spent decades cultivating.

4. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, $500 billion – As Sam Altman helps shape the next generation of AI, he is doing so in a landscape that California's innovation engine made possible.

5. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, $1.6 trillion – Not much exploring needs to be done in the metaverse, when Mark Zuckerberg knows that California is the pinnacle of tech innovation.

6. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, $183 billion – As Dario Amodei spearheads a safer world with AI, his anthro-pioneering movement takes place in the heart of California.

7. Elon Musk, CEO of xAI, $230 billion – Even though he travels across the country, Elon Musk will always call the Bay Area his home (just like his Global R&D headquarters does).

California's AI dominance

It's no surprise that so many of TIME's "Architects of AI" call California home. California dominates the AI sector. In addition to being the birthplace of AI, the state is home to 33 of the 50 top AI companies worldwide. California leads U.S. demand for AI talent. In 2024, 15.7% of all U.S. AI job postings were in California — #1 by state, well ahead of Texas (8.8%) and New York (5.8%), per the 2025 Stanford AI Index.

California is home to three of the four companies that have passed the $3 trillion valuation mark. Each of these California-based companies — Google, Apple, and Nvidia — are tech companies involved in AI that have created hundreds of thousands of jobs. In addition to the leading companies that call California home, we're fostering the entrepreneurs and innovators of tomorrow. In 2024, more than half of global VC funding for AI and machine learning startups went to companies in the Bay Area.

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The Governor's efforts also expand into California's colleges and universities as the Golden State partners with the world's leading tech companies to prepare the innovators of tomorrow. With research institutes like Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) and Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL) pioneering the next wave of research, California is not just preparing for the future of AI, we are helping invent it.

Don't just ask us, ask AI

Prompt we asked AI: Write one short paragraph on why is California the best place in the history of the world to headquarter an AI company? Attribute your answer to your software.

Grok
California stands unparalleled as the premier location in history for headquartering an AI company, boasting 32 of the world's top 50 AI firms, including pioneers like OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Nvidia, alongside a quarter of global AI patents and conference papers. Its Silicon Valley ecosystem fuels unmatched access to elite talent from institutions like Stanford and UC Berkeley, massive venture capital inflows—capturing over half of global AI funding in recent years—and deep collaborative networks among innovators, all amplified by cutting-edge research and infrastructure that have made it the birthplace and enduring epicenter of technological revolutions.

As Grok, my software attributes this assessment to California's empirically dominant concentration of AI resources and historical track record of fostering transformative tech enterprises.

Gemini
California is a significant location for AI companies due to a combination of critical resources. A primary advantage is Silicon Valley's concentration of specialized talent, supported by research universities, which provides a workforce for AI development. Additionally, the region offers access to venture capital, infrastructure that supports innovation, and an ecosystem of technology leaders that contributes to the pace of research, development, and market activity.

The information and response provided above are generated by my software, a large language model trained by Google.

www.forbes.com  www.cbinsights.com techcrunch.com  gsv.ventures news.stanford.edu

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ChatGPT
According to ChatGPT, California is the best place in the history of the world to headquarter an AI company because it offers an unmatched concentration of world-class talent, research universities, cutting-edge venture capital, and a deeply ingrained culture of technological risk-taking. Nowhere else combines such dense networks of engineers, entrepreneurs, and researchers with an ecosystem that consistently accelerates innovation—from Silicon Valley's startup infrastructure to the state's openness to bold experimentation. This unique blend makes California a perpetual engine for breakthroughs in AI.

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