Powerful American consumers may finally meet their game, a huge dwarf rectangular box that houses very few people but rather a large number of servers, storage systems and networking devices. Consumer spending in the U.S. service economy is so large that it can put the mind in trouble, including About two-thirds of GDP. To explain the long-running coffee chain’, the United States has been spending.
However, this powerful American consumer has a slow season and summer 2025 seems to be one of them. There are several interconnected factors, i.e. Recent job growth Now it looks much smaller than previously thought, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the workforce. But those clumsy rectangular boxes, sprouting a large number of data centers across the country, have become giant magnets in a way that rivals the way consumers consume.
Giant tech companies spent so much money in data centers in 2025 that their spending is making more contributions to U.S. economic growth rather than consumer spending, which has long been believed to be the country Economic Engine. If you make a reasonable assumption that spending in a data center is equivalent to AI capital expenditure defined as capital used for information processing equipment and software, the pattern is obvious: a ton of funds are flowing into a concentrated area, and the results are uncertain.
Microsoft,,,,, Google,,,,, Amazonand Yuan It is the major companies investing at amazing levels to build and upgrade data centers to support index demand for AI computing power, with only these four companies Forecasting a record $364 billion The so-called “magnificent 7” tech giant has spent more than $100 billion on data center projects in the past three months in capital investment in 2025 Depend on Wall Street JournalChristopher Mims.
All of these spending must have an impact on economic analyst estimates for Renaissance macrostudy, suggesting that, so far, AI data center spending has contributed to GDP growth in 2025, surpassing the overall impact of all consumer spending in the United States, for the first time.
So far this year, we define it as AI CAPEX for information processing devices plus software increases more GDP growth than consumer spending. pic.twitter.com/d70fx2lxaw– Renmac: Macro Studies of the Renaissance (@Renmacllc) July 30, 2025
Or, as author Rusty Foster, who reads widely on media blogs Today in the tagMay I ask: “Our economy may be just three AI data centers.” This reminds me of classic comedy devices from several kids wearing long coats, pretending to be adults, just as Netflix on Netflix Bojack Horsemanwhen”Vincent Adult” She successfully maintained several dates with Princess Carolyn Princess.
Why is this happening now?
Several forces are driving this unprecedented wave of investment. The boom of generated AI and high-level large language models (technology that requires a lot of computing resources) has forced tech giants to rapidly increase their physical infrastructure. From McKinsey Global companies will need to invest in projects between 2025 and 2030 A stunning $6.7 trillion Enter new data center capabilities to keep up with AI needs.
AI data center spending has increased at least tenfold since 2022. Famous business blog Paul Kedrosky It is estimated that it itself is close to 2% of U.S. GDP. “Honey, AI Capex is eating the economy.” AI Capex is so big that it “affects economic statistics, promotes the economy and begins to approach the railway boom.”
Torsten Slok of Apollo Global Management has not gotten involved in capital expenditure issues in data centers and has assembled research that suggests that The AI boom has surpassed the market value of the technological boom in the late 1990sIt was called “Dotcom Bubble” after the speculative mania outbreak and the recession.
Kedrosky has made similar views throughout financial history, similar to capital expenditures, especially the telecom boom in 2020, related to 5G/fiber technology and the railway boom in the 19th century, as the United States adopted the transportation revolution. “Capital expenditure in AI data centers may account for about 20% of peak spending on railroads, a percentage of GDP, and is still rising rapidly,” Kedrosky wrote. “And we have peaked in telecom spending during the internet bubble decades ago.” Noah Smith, a widely read alternative to economics, Ask an obvious question: “Will the data center collapse the economy?”
Impact on the wider economy
This surge in technology investment has far-reaching downstream consequences. Without AI data center hype, GDP may actually shrink under uncertain macroeconomic conditions, so data center spending may have avoided (or delayed) the recession.
Floods are flooding into AI infrastructure and are moving from other sectors, including venture capital, traditional manufacturing, and even consumer-facing startups. Unlike historical infrastructure booms such as railways or telecommunications, AI data centers are short-lived, rapidly derogatory, requiring continuous hardware upgrades, an investment model that may maintain volatility and capital volume over the next few years.
As AI redefines the industry, the physics director (vast data center) who flows into the technology has disrupted old assumptions about driving the U.S. economy. Consumer spending, while still huge in absolute terms, has not kept up with the extraordinary scale and investment speed of the technology giants determined to lead the AI era. The trajectory shows that the U.S. economy in 2025 is shaped not by the purchasing power of its people, but by ruthless AI computing power, a growth engine that is unprecedented in technology leadership.
For this story, wealth Use the generated AI to help with the initial draft. The editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
