AI investments powering U.S. economic growth, but job creation remains uncertain
Firms are pledging billions of dollars toward building out artificial intelligence networks. But jobs from that spending may be hard to come by.
Increasingly, economic growth in the U.S. is being powered by artificial intelligence investments.
Today, many consumers directly interact with AI through applications like ChatGPT or through summarized search results on Google or Apple. They may also be encountering AI-generated images on social media.
But that’s not what’s driving the growth. Instead, it’s the investments in building out the raw computing power and electricity infrastructure needed to power those applications, and any that might evolve from them in the future. Think data center construction, computer processing chips, information processing equipment and electricity transmission hardware.
“Where AI has had a direct impact on the economy is in capital spending by [tech companies] and other companies on hardware and software necessary to expand their cloud-computing capacity so it can accommodate greater needs of demand for AI computing,” said Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, a market and economy consulting firm.
For now, the gains from this increased spending on AI tech and infrastructure have been relatively narrow both in terms of jobs and financial returns.
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