Source: Federal Reserve Board (FEDS Notes) — 2026-07-17
Summary
Federal Reserve Board staff published a FEDS Note laying out an analytical framework, built entirely on publicly available data, for quantifying how much of recent US GDP growth is attributable to AI-related investment — software, data centers, power infrastructure, and compute hardware. The note traces the AI-related components' contribution to quarterly GDP growth from 2025 through Q1 2026, finding software and compute equipment spending are currently the largest positive contributors.
Key Takeaways
- This is a methodology paper as much as a findings paper: the framework is explicitly built so outside researchers can replicate or extend it using only public data, rather than relying on proprietary industry estimates.
- Software and compute equipment investment are identified as the largest positive AI-related contributors to GDP growth in the covered period, ahead of data center construction and power infrastructure spending.
- Coming directly from Federal Reserve Board staff gives this more analytical weight than typical industry or consultancy "AI's economic impact" estimates, since it's produced independently of anyone selling AI infrastructure or services.
- For anyone tracking whether the AI capex buildout is showing up in real macroeconomic data versus remaining a story confined to tech-sector earnings calls, this is a rare direct attempt to separate the two using standard economic accounting.