Vendor Concentration

60% of institutions exceed the antitrust threshold on AI vendor concentration.

59.8%
Institutions above DOJ highly threshold
2,802
Mean vendor HHI
19
Institutions near full vendor monopoly

We compute the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of AI vendor concentration for each institution, applying the standard antitrust measure to AI agent populations rather than to product markets. The U.S. Department of Justice classifies HHI above 1,800 as highly concentrated. Across 542 regulated financial institutions, mean HHI is 2,802, median 2,149. Three hundred and twenty-four sit above the highly concentrated threshold. Nineteen sit at or near 8,000, indicating near-total dependence on a single AI vendor. DORA Article 28 mandates concentration assessment for ICT third parties. The substrate shows the population that fails it.

Figure 1 · Vendor HHI Distribution Across 542 Institutions
DOJ highly concentrated · 1,800 71 98 49 91 117 76 21 19 0 30 60 90 120 INSTITUTIONS 0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 VENDOR HHI Six in ten institutions exceed the antitrust concentration threshold. MAR®500.com

Each bar groups institutions by their vendor Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, calculated as the sum of squared vendor shares of agent populations. The vertical gold dashed line marks the DOJ "highly concentrated" threshold of 1,800. Bars to the right of the threshold, in navy, count institutions that fail the antitrust threshold for AI vendor concentration. The peak bucket holds 117 institutions between 2,500 and 4,000. The right tail extends to the maximum at 10,000, full single-vendor dependence.

Source · Meridian substrate v13.1.0, May 2026 · HHI = sum of squared agent-share percentages by vendor · DOJ highly threshold 1,800 Methodology · Cascade Without Containment (working paper)
543 institutions · 12 sectors · 95,876 agents · 636,854 governance edges · substrate v13.1.0
Methodology grounded in Cascade Without Containment, working paper. Substrate methodology in The Stationary Sea (Part 1) on Zenodo.