【By Chen Sijia, Observer News】According to a report by U.S. Fortune magazine on October 7, a study by Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University in the United States, found that the growth of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in the first half of 2025 was almost entirely driven by data centers and information processing technologies. In other areas outside these technologies, the U.S. growth rate was only 0.1%.
This has raised concerns in American society about a "data center bubble," with many people worried that without technological investment, the U.S. economy may fall into a recession. The U.S. "Business Insider" website also published an article stating that U.S. tech giants are continuously raising funds to expand data centers, but this business model has not been validated yet, and it is unclear whether the revenue from AI products can support the rising expenses. If not, the U.S. economy may face risks such as a stock market crash.
Furman's research data posted on social media shows that investments in information processing equipment and software accounted for only 4% of the U.S. GDP this year, but they accounted for 92% of GDP growth. The average growth of the U.S. GDP in the first half of the year was 1.6%, but if we exclude areas such as data centers and information processing technologies, the U.S. GDP growth rate was only 0.1%, almost stagnant.
Furman added that without the prosperity of the AI industry, the U.S. might lower interest rates and electricity prices, thus driving growth in other industries, but such growth could be only about half of the gains brought by the AI boom.

Furman's research shows that investment in information processing equipment and software has surged in the U.S., but economic growth in other areas of the U.S. is almost stagnant.
This research result has been endorsed by many financial analysts. Lisa Shallet, Chief Investment Officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said that "super scale tech companies" dedicated to expanding computing, storage, and network capabilities have already invested huge sums of money in data centers and related fields.
Shallet said, "In recent years, capital expenditures by super scale tech companies in data centers and related fields have increased fourfold, with annual spending approaching 40 billion U.S. dollars. The speed and scale of investment growth are significantly amplifying their overall economic impact, with the top ten companies accounting for nearly one-third of all expenditures... From a macroeconomic perspective, spending related to data centers has contributed approximately 100 basis points to the U.S. real GDP growth."
Due to the development of AI technology, the demand for computing power has experienced "explosive" growth, and U.S. tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, and NVIDIA have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in building and upgrading data centers.
Renaissance Macro Research in New York estimated in August that, as of 2025, the contribution of AI data center construction to U.S. GDP growth exceeded U.S. consumer spending for the first time. Fortune magazine pointed out that given that consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of U.S. GDP, this performance is very impressive.
However, while the economy is growing through technology, other sectors of the U.S. economy are generally sluggish, with manufacturing, real estate, retail, and service industries contributing little or even experiencing negative growth. This has triggered concerns in American society about a "data center bubble," with many people worried that without technological investment, the U.S. economy may fall into a recession.
John W. Diamond, director of the Center for Public Finance at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, wrote on August 2nd that the U.S. economy is in trouble, with a stagnant labor market and consumers losing confidence. The number of jobs added in August was only 22,000, and the long-term unemployment rate is rising, with 1.8 million people unemployed for more than 27 weeks, accounting for nearly a quarter of the total unemployed population.
Some analysts have tried to downplay the concerns. Michael Gapen, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, believes that U.S. companies have borne the initial costs of the Trump administration's tariff policies, reducing unit labor costs and profitability rather than passing the costs on by increasing prices, which can explain the contradiction between "strong expenditure data and weak employment growth."
Gapen's explanation weakens the link between U.S. GDP growth and the data center construction boom. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, also insisted that the U.S. data center construction boom is an "industrial bubble," not a "financial bubble." He believes that when Americans can use vast computing power in the future, the investment of tens of billions of dollars will be worth it.

Data center project "Stargate" built in Texas, China
The U.S. "Business Insider" website published an article on the 7th stating that by the end of 2024, 1,240 data centers had been built or approved for construction in the U.S., a fourfold increase from 2010. Among the "big electricity users" in the U.S., Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google are expected to spend 320 billion U.S. dollars on capital expenditures this year, mainly for AI infrastructure construction, a figure that exceeds Finland's GDP.
The article pointed out that the AI infrastructure boom is closely related to the training of large language models. Training large language models requires massive data, and to improve performance, models must continuously acquire and analyze more data, which requires more powerful computing power. To obtain computing power as much as possible, tech companies need more data centers, shaping the current competitive landscape.
U.S. tech companies are raising funds through various channels to expand data centers. For example, Oracle issued 18 billion U.S. dollars in bonds last month to fund its data center plans. Meta recently received funding support from Pacific Investment Management Company and Blue Catbird Capital to raise 29 billion U.S. dollars for its latest data center projects.
However, the "Business Insider" website analyzed that this business model has not been validated yet, and it is unclear whether the revenue from AI products can support the rising expenses. If it can, this may drive the U.S. economy into a higher growth trajectory and transform the entire industry. However, if not, it may reshape the U.S. economic landscape, leading to a stock market crash and idle data centers.
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