The AI ​​data center boom is distorting the US economy

amount The flow of capital into AI data center projects is astonishing. Last week, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon announced their results Capital expenditures 2025 That will total nearly $370 billion, and they expect that number to continue rising in 2026. Microsoft was the biggest spender last quarter, investing nearly $35 billion in data centers and other investments, equivalent to 45% of its revenue.

Rarely has a single technology absorbed so much money so quickly. Warnings of an AI bubble are growing every day, but whether the collapse eventually occurs or not, this madness is already reshaping the US economy. Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University, estimates that investment in data centers and software processing technology has helped Almost all US GDP growth In the first half of 2025.

Today, we look at how data centers impact three important areas: public markets, jobs, and energy.

Exchange money

The US stock market is booming, mostly thanks to artificial intelligence. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, AI-related stocks have been in the spotlight 75% of the S&P 500 returns And 80% of earnings growth, according to Michael Cymbalist of JPMorgan. The question now is whether this growth will be sustainable as technology companies continue to spend heavily on AI infrastructure.

At the beginning of this year, tech giants were mostly funding their AI projects with cash on hand. As financial journalist Derek Thompson He pointed outthe ten largest public companies in the United States started 2025 with historically high free cash flow margins. In other words, their business was so profitable that they had billions of dollars available to use to buy GPUs from Nvidia and build data centers.

This trend has largely continued through 2025. Alphabet, for example, told investors last week that its capital expenditures this year will reach $93 billion, an increase from its previous estimate of $75 billion. But it also reported that revenue was up 33 percent year over year. In other words, Silicon Valley spends more and earns more. This means everything is fine, right?

Not exactly. For one thing, tech giants seem to be using… Accounting tricks To make their financial statements look rosier than they might actually be. A large portion of AI investments flows to Nvidia, which issues… New releases of its GPUs approximately every two years. But companies like Microsoft and Alphabet currently estimate that their chips will last for six years. If they need to upgrade sooner to remain competitive – a likely possibility – it could erode their profits and weaken their overall performance.