JP Morgan Chase Reclassifies AI Spending as “Core Infrastructure”

JP Morgan Chase has moved AI spending into its core infrastructure budget, underscoring a shift in how the bank views the technology as it becomes central to day-to-day operations.

The world’s largest bank has reclassified AI investment from “discretionary innovation”  to "core infrastructure”,  placing it alongside data centers, payment systems, and core risk controls.

With an annual technology budget of around $17 billion, JPMorgan has allocated roughly $2 billion specifically to AI, treating the investment with the same non-negotiable priority as cybersecurity or operational resilience.

CEO Jamie Dimon has defended the bank’s rising technology spend, warning that financial institutions that fail to scale AI risk losing ground to competitors. The focus, Dimon has stressed, is not on replacing staff but on ensuring the bank remains effective in an industry where efficiency and scale are critical.

JP Morgan has invested heavily in technology for several years, but the treatment of AI marks a change in emphasis. Spending that was previously tied to innovation initiatives is now considered part of the bank’s baseline operating costs

AI tools are increasingly used to support internal functions such as research, document drafting, internal reviews, and other routine tasks across the organisation.

The reclassification reflects how deeply AI is being embedded into the bank’s operations. One of the most prominent deployments is the “LLM Suite”, a proprietary generative AI platform that is now available to more than 60,000 employees.

The system acts as a secure interface with external large language models, allowing staff to summarise regulatory documents, draft emails, and generate ideas without exposing sensitive data to public AI platforms.