Without AI spending, U.S. corporate investment in equipment would be negative, a decline that’s ‘worryingly broad-based,’ Pantheon analyst says |
Without AI spending, U.S. corporate investment in equipment would be negative, a decline that’s ‘worryingly broad-based,’ Pantheon analyst says
Spending on AI infrastructure now forms a significant part of U.S. GDP growth, and corporate capital expenditure (capex) would be negative without it, according to a recent research note from Pantheon Macroeconomics.“We’ve got a situation where large sums of money are pouring into AI infrastructure, providing a meaningful boost to GDP,” Pantheon analyst Oliver Allen told Fortune recently.Overall capex rose by 2.6% in Q4 2025, Allen wrote in a research note this morning. Within that, intellectual property and software spending (i.e., spending likely linked to AI) was up 7.4%, and computer and communications equipment was up 61%. But all other segments declined: “Investment in other equipment plunged by 17%, a decline that was worryingly broad-based,” he wrote.
“The first three quarters of 2025 averaged 2.5% GDP growth. [And] 0.3 percentage points of that was AI-related sectors,” he said.
Allen also theorized that consumer spending may in some way be buoyed by AI capex. Consumer spending rose by 2.4% in Q4 2025, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Friday. Consumer spending at the moment is heavily driven by spending from wealthier demographics who have enjoyed stock market gains, often from tech stocks, Allen told Fortune.
“Their spending is a little bit stronger than it otherwise would have been due to the wealth effect” of tech stocks, he said.
“Markets do run off stories and a certain view of the future. A lot of the growth we’re seeing through the capex story, through the wealth effect, is via this story about AI being the future,” he said.
Jim Edwards is the executive editor for global news at Fortune. He was previously the editor-in-chief of Business Insider's news division and the founding editor of Business Insider UK. His investigative journalism has changed the law in two U.S. federal districts and two states. The U.S. Supreme Court cited his work on the death penalty in the concurrence to Baze v. Rees, the ruling on whether lethal injection is cruel or unusual. He also won the Neal award for an investigation of bribes and kickbacks on Madison Avenue.
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