The AI boom is on track to become the largest single-industry infrastructure buildout in more than a century, according to new estimates published by the Brookings Institution.
\n\nThe Wall Street Journal reports that economist Stijn van Nieuwerburgh projects that total investment in data centers and related AI infrastructure will reach $10.3 trillion between 2025 and 2032, averaging 3.6 percent of GDP a year. Goldman Sachs, using a different method, puts AI investment in the U.S. at 1.9 percent of GDP in 2026 alone. The last time a single new industry claimed a bigger share of the economy was the railroad boom of the late 19th century.
\n\nVan Nieuwerburgh’s numbers put that in perspective. Canal construction from 1836 to 1841 averaged 0.66 percent of GDP annually. Railroads from 1870 to 1890 averaged 2.24 percent. Electrification from 1905 to 1925 came in at 0.5 percent, the interstate highway system from 1956 to 1973 at 1.13 percent, and the telecom and fiber-optic buildout from 1996 to 2003 at 1.1 percent. His estimate for AI infrastructure, 3.63 percent from 2025 to 2032, tops them all.
\n\nThe spending already shows up in construction data. Through July, seasonally adjusted spending on private data center construction hit…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/
