Without the hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into AI data centres, equivalent to more than £200 billion at current exchange rates, America would already be in a downturn. That is the stark warning from a Columbia Business School economist whose research has rippled through financial markets this month.
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a real estate and finance professor at Columbia, argues that AI infrastructure spending has become the single biggest driver of US economic growth. 'We'd basically be in a recession right now without data centers,' he says. 'That's how big AI is.' His findings, first published by Columbia Business School, come as bond markets show growing unease about how all this construction is actually being paid for.
