The mighty American consumer may have finally met their match, and it’s a giant hulking rectangular box that hosts very few people inside, but rather a huge nest of servers, storage systems, and networking equipment. Consumer spending in the American services economy is so large it can boggle the mind, representing roughly two-thirds of gross domestic product. To paraphrase the long-running coffee chain Dunkin’, America runs on spending.
But this mighty American consumer has slow seasons, and the summer of 2025 appears to be one of them. There are several interconnected factors, namely, recent jobs growth now appearing much smaller than previously thought and the impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce. But those hulking rectangular boxes, the massive data centers sprouting up across the country, are emerging as a giant magnet for dollars and a dominant driver of the economy.
