BYD
Global EV powerhouse
BYD is the world’s most important automaker that most Americans have never heard of. The Shenzhen-based firm may shun the U.S. market for political reasons, but it accounts for 39% of electric or hybrid cars sold in China—the world’s largest auto market—and is present in 53 countries and regions around the globe. The $100 billion firm—whose initials stand for “Build Your Dreams”—aims to become the world’s top EV maker by selling 3.7 million cars in 2023, compared with a projected 2 million for Tesla. Backed by Warren Buffett, and led by founder and CEO Wang Chuanfu, it’s a vital driver of the green-energy revolution as the leading clean-car brand in markets as diverse as Brazil, Colombia, Israel, and Thailand. —CHARLIE CAMPBELL
MICROSOFT
Integrating AI
A few years ago, it may have looked as if Microsoft’s most revolutionary days were over. But CEO has quietly been making smart bets on AI, which have begun to pay off big-time. Billion-dollar investments in OpenAI—which uses Microsoft supercomputers to power its breakout chatbot ChatGPT—positioned the company at the fore of the AI revolution, prompting competitors like Google to respond. Microsoft is now integrating AI into its software, from Bing to Office, touching the lives of hundreds of millions of users. Its subsidiary Github uses OpenAI’s tech to power Copilot, a tool with 100 million users that has revolutionized coding by allowing people to turn natural language into
