BIG TECH keeps getting bigger. So far this year the combined market value of America’s five digital behemoths—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft—has soared by half, to around $9trn. That is almost a quarter of the total for the S&P 500, an index of America’s largest companies (which has risen by just 17% in the period). The five account for almost 60% of sales, profits and spending on research and development of all the technology firms in the index. They are widely expected to be the main winners from the artificial-intelligence (AI) revolution.
Governments view this dominance with increasing trepidation. On September 12th
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