It’s no secret by now, as investors await an earnings report on Wednesday by the chip behemoth Nvidia, that optimism around the windfall that artificial intelligence may generate is pumping up the stock market.
But in recent months, it has also become clear that A.I. spending is lifting the real economy, too. It’s not because of how companies are using the technology, at least not yet. Rather, the sheer amount of investment — in data centers, semiconductor factories and power supply — needed to build the computing power that A.I. demands is creating enough business activity to brighten readings on the entire domestic economy. Companies will spend $375 billion globally in 2025 on A.I. infrastructure, the investment bank UBS estimates. That is projected to rise to $500 billion next year. Investment in software and computer equipment, not counting the data center buildings, accounted for a quarter of all economic growth this past year, data from the Commerce Department shows.

Full report : The trillions of dollars that tech companies are pouring into new data centers are starting to show up in economic growth.