TIME magazine has selected the Architects of AI as its 2025 Person of the Year, recognizing the leaders who have driven the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence through innovation, massive investments and infrastructure development.
The announcement came December 11, 2025, as detailed in the magazine’s cover story and accompanying editor’s letter. TIME Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs wrote in his letter to readers: “This was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back or opting out… This year, no one had a greater impact than the individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI.” Jacobs continued: “For these reasons, we recognize a force that has dominated the year’s headlines, for better or for worse. For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year.”
This marks one of the instances in the magazine’s nearly century-old tradition where the honor goes to a collective group rather than an individual, similar to past recognitions such as “You” in 2006 for the rise of user-generated content or the personal computer in 1982. The choice highlights 2025 as the year AI shifted from emerging technology to a pervasive force reshaping economies, geopolitics and daily life.
The featured individuals include prominent figures such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose chips power much of the AI infrastructure; OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; xAI founder Elon Musk; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg; AMD CEO Lisa Su; Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei; DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis; and AI researcher Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford University’s Human-Centered AI Institute and CEO of World Labs.
The selection reflects major developments in 2025, including the announcement of the Stargate Project shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. The initiative, involving commitments of up to $500 billion for AI data centers across the United States, brought together partners such as OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, Microsoft and SoftBank. This followed other large-scale investments, with hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta planning a combined $370 billion for data centers and related infrastructure.
The buildout of AI factories has driven demand for advanced chips and energy resources, leading companies to locate facilities in areas with available power, from West Texas wind farms to Norwegian hydropower sites and Persian Gulf regions. Nvidia reported nearly quadrupling chip production while only doubling head count, aided by AI tools used internally. At Anthropic, Claude now writes up to 90 percent of its own code, and AMD has accelerated software development, as CEO Lisa Su noted: “2025 is the year that AI became really productive for enterprises.”
TIME’s two covers illustrate the theme. One, by digital painter Jason Seiler, reimagines the 1932 “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” photograph with the named leaders on a beam high above a construction site. The other, by illustrator Peter Crowther, shows the same figures amid scaffolding forming the letters “AI,” evoking ongoing construction and complexity.
The recognition comes amid both optimism for AI’s productivity gains and concerns over its societal effects, including job displacement, energy consumption and ethical questions. TIME noted the tension between rapid deployment and calls for responsible governance, with the sprint to build out infrastructure now dominating over earlier caution.
For Southern Maryland residents, who rely on technology in sectors such as defense at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, federal agencies and growing remote work, AI’s expansion influences local economies through increased demand for computing power and related jobs. The Stargate Project and similar efforts could affect national energy policies and infrastructure priorities that reach Maryland’s grid and data needs.
The Person of the Year tradition, started in 1927, aims to spotlight those who most shaped events “for better or for worse.” Previous honorees include Donald Trump in 2024, and the choice of a group underscores AI’s collective impact in 2025.