Big Tech Is Spending Billions on AI Research. Investors Should Keep an Eye Out

While these companies take different tacks, both have the potential to catalyze tomorrow's advances in drug discovery, new materials, remedies to climate change, closer analysis of military-drone footage and more. And they are hardly the only ones: Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc., Oracle Corp., International Business Machines Corp. and others are also in the AI marathon. The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. Consumers and investors, more focused on spasms in the stock market, may not be paying attention to projects not directly connected to lines of business or quarterly results. But research and development often hatch products that vault beyond a lab's original aims.