I asked AI what is more - a million billion or a billion million

A million-billion and a billion-million are the same thing; both represent a million multiplied by a billion, or 10^12 + 10^9. This is equal to one trillion. Therefore, a million-billion is equal to a billion-million.

Does not seem right to me.
A trillion is 1000 x a billion, is this not true?

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

Depends rather on your definitions.

The originals were million, meaning 1000^2, billion = M^2 (bi means two), trillion = M^3 (tri means three, etc.; multipying from one million by one million (not one thousand) each time.

The American dictionary, perhaps driven by the money trade, removed the arithmetical link to make the billion = 1000 million instead. So the set of names lost their etymology hence numerical meaning.

Your sum is not quite correct though.

We add the indices, not the basic values, when multiplying by powers:

Using the arithmetical definitions as I think you have done:

I million X 1 billion = 10^6 X 10^12 = 10^(6 +12) = 10^18 = 1 million million million = 1 million cubed = 1 trillion.

This is identical to 1 billion X 1 million, because multiplications and additions can be expressed either way round.

It also shows the principle of Logarithms (here, to base-10).