Epoch Brief, October 8, 2026: AI Agent Population Estimates, Falling AI Costs, and China Chip Exposure

Epoch AI estimates that AI chips shipped through 2027 could support about 30 to 170 million concurrent frontier-model agents, or almost 2 billion if run on cheaper models. Its research also finds the cost of a fixed level of AI performance has fallen about 47% per quarter over three years, roughly 13× per year. Separately, Epoch estimates China's exposure to semiconductor supply shocks is 2.7× that of the US.