This economic idea transfixed Wall Street and Washington. It may be a mirage.

[progree]

2. Link ... and what I'm getting from the full article

https://archive.ph/IgY4W

What's spent on AI in the U.S., like for building data centers, minus the imported part of that (a lot of the chips are Asian-made), is counted as GDP in the official GDP calculation, whether or not it produces any economic benefit,

What's being spent on AI is debatable within a wide range, so it's part of the disagreement about its contribution to the GDP number.

Technology companies’ massive spending on artificial intelligence accounted for half or more of U.S. growth last year, some economists calculated, effectively propping up an otherwise anemic economy.

. . . “This is a big deal, but not the be-all and end-all,” said Joseph Politano, an economic analyst who writes the Apricitas Economics newsletter. He calculates that AI-related spending contributed about 0.2 percentage points to the 2.2 percent U.S. economic growth last year. . . . AI “is a special case, because so much is imported,” he said. . . . Five leading U.S. technology companies are expected to spend a combined $700 billion this year on AI infrastructure and other major projects

. . . Rubinton at the St. Louis Fed co-wrote an analysis that concluded AI-related business spending contributed about 39 percent of U.S. economic growth through the first nine months of 2025.

She stands by that calculation but acknowledges that it is probably the maximum possible economic boost related to AI. The tally included spending on software, computers and research that wasn’t necessarily all related to AI. On Friday, after the release of a government estimate of economic growth for all of 2025 ((2.2% -progree)), Rubinton said her analysis broadly stood.