Harvard economist Jason Furman estimates that investments in data centers and information-processing software accounted for 92% of the US' GDP growth in H1 2025
U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025 was almost entirely driven by investment in data centers and information processing technology …
FortuneNick Lichtenberg
Context & Ripple Effects
Earlier coverage showed U.S. private data-center construction had already more than doubled from late 2022, making infrastructure build-out a material investment story rather than a narrow technology-sector theme: the rapid rise in private data-center construction.
Furman’s estimate sharpens the macroeconomic significance of that build-out. It also sits alongside later coverage that places the AI investment boom at roughly 1% of GDP, a useful reminder that a concentrated contribution to incremental growth is not the same as the sector’s share of the whole economy: AI investment’s GDP-scale footprint.
First-order effects
The estimate makes first-half U.S. growth look unusually concentrated in data-center and information-processing investment, rather than broadly distributed across private-sector activity.
It elevates data-center builders and information-processing software from sector-specific demand beneficiaries to central contributors to the period’s reported growth outcome.
Second-order effects
A growth mix led by this investment intensifies competition for the capital, electricity and labor used in large-scale build-outs, reinforcing concerns that the boom can crowd out manufacturing investment priorities.
Investors and policymakers will have stronger reason to distinguish headline GDP momentum from underlying breadth, especially if other private investment categories remain comparatively subdued.
Third-order effects
If this concentration persists, U.S. macro performance becomes more exposed to the timing and durability of AI-infrastructure capital spending—a shift from broad demand growth toward a more capital-intensive growth model.
The key longer-run test is whether the infrastructure wave produces sustained productivity gains across the economy; related coverage’s stronger 2025 productivity reading makes that possibility plausible, but does not establish causation: the reported productivity acceleration.
The trend:AI infrastructure is becoming a macroeconomic demand engine, while raising the question of whether concentrated capital expenditure can translate into broad, durable productivity growth.
Investment in information processing equipment & software is 4% of GDP. But it was responsible for 92% of GDP growth in the first half of this year. GDP excluding these categories grew at a 0.1% annual rate in H1. [image]
(To be clear, this is not a counterfactual. Absent the AI boom we would probably have lower interest rates & electricity prices, thus some additional growth in other sectors. In very rough terms that could maybe make up about half of what we got from the AI boom.)
@jasonfurman's charts correctly show that real business investment in info equipment & software has surged. Much of the IPE&S investment rise was imported (left). Must net these out to estimate IPE&S effect on GDP. Of 2025 H1 1.6% SAAR growth, 0.24pp due to net IPE&S (right). [im…
“Absent the AI boom we would probably have lower interest rates & electricity prices, thus some additional growth in other sectors. In very rough terms that could maybe make up about half of what we got from the AI boom.”
Bubble? Harvard economist Jason Furman says investments in data centres and software was 92% of US GDP growth in H1 2025. Without it, US GDP growth was just 0.1% https://fortune.com/...
U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025 was almost entirely driven by investment in data centers and information processing technology. Excluding these technology-related categories, GDP growth would have been just 0.1% on an annualized basis. — fortune.com/2025/10/07/d...
U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025 was almost entirely driven by investment in data centers and information processing technology, according to Harvard economist Jason Furman. Excluding these technology-related categories, Furman calculated in a Sept. 27 …