www.noahpinion.blog/p/wheres-the-intelligence-explosion
1 correction found
3% of US GDP is now going into AI infrastructure
Current public estimates put U.S. AI infrastructure/capex well below 3% of GDP in 2026. Goldman Sachs estimated U.S. AI capex at about 1.8% of GDP this year, and JPMorgan notes the headline hyperscaler capex figures are neither fully domestic nor fully AI-related.
Full reasoning
This overstates current U.S. AI infrastructure spending.
Why:
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The headline hyperscaler capex number is not the same as U.S. AI infrastructure spending. JPMorgan notes that roughly 30% of hyperscaler capex goes to overseas data centers, and that not all hyperscaler capex is AI-related because those firms were already spending about $150B/year before AI. So you cannot take the full hyperscaler capex figure and treat it as domestic AI infrastructure spend.
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A major published 2026 estimate for U.S. AI capex is far below 3% of GDP. Goldman Sachs estimated $581 billion in U.S. AI investment in 2026 and explicitly said that implies 1.8% of U.S. GDP in 2026, rising to 2.5% in 2027. That directly contradicts the claim that 3% of U.S. GDP is now going into AI infrastructure.
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Recent Federal Reserve data are also materially below 3%. The Fed reported that 2025 capex by the major AI-linked tech firms it tracks reached $412 billion, or about 1.31% of U.S. GDP. Even allowing for growth in 2026, that benchmark is still far below the article’s stated 3%.
So while AI infrastructure spending is indeed very large and rising quickly, the specific figure "3% of US GDP" overstates the currently published U.S. estimate.
3 sources
- How much of the AI boom is adding to U.S. growth? | J.P. Morgan Asset Management
"U.S. hyperscalers are multinational companies, so not all of their spending is domestic. Estimates suggest roughly 30% of their capex goes to overseas data centers. Nor is all capex AI-related, since these companies were spending roughly $150bn a year before AI."
- Global AI Investment Is Forecast to Exceed $1 Trillion in 2026 | Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs estimated $581 billion of AI investment in the US in 2026 and said: "Those estimates imply that AI capex will rise from 1.8% of GDP in the US ... in 2026 to 2.5% of GDP in the US ... in 2027."
- Monitoring AI Adoption in the US Economy, Accessible Data | Federal Reserve Board
"Capex reached $131 billion in Q4 2025 on a quarterly basis and $412 billion for the year, representing about 1.31 percent of U.S. GDP."