Imports mute AI's boost to GDP
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America's AI investment boom may be playing a bigger role in the U.S. economy than headline economic statistics suggest.
Why it matters: The AI boom depends on enormous imports of hardware that the U.S. doesn't make. That creates an unusual disconnect between the scale of the investment and how it appears in the government's economic statistics, particularly GDP.
The big picture: Not all investment counts equally toward GDP. The AI buildout relies heavily on imported chips, servers and networking equipment, meaning that part of the investment boom is offset in the government's growth calculations.
What they're saying: AI doesn't have its own catch-all category in the government's economic data, forcing economists to infer its contribution from underlying investment and trade categories.
- "Measuring precisely how much recent GDP growth has been boosted by AI-related investment poses a greater challenge given the lack of a dedicated line item in the national accounts and the high import-content of the equipment underlying the buildout," Federal Reserve Board economists Paul Soto, Mason Thieu and Jeffrey Allen wrote in a paper this month.
By the numbers: The economy grew at an annualized 2.1% rate in the first quarter. The Fed economists estimate that spending on AI — investment in software, data centers, power infrastructure and computing equipment — added about 0.73 percentage point to GDP growth.
- But without the drag from imported AI-related parts, the estimated contribution from AI-related investment would have been larger.
- Net imports of computers, peripherals and parts alone subtracted 0.45 percentage point from growth.
Zoom in: AI-related products accounted for 23% of all U.S. imports in 2025, up from 15% in 2023, according to research from Minneapolis Fed economist Michael Waugh — with computer hardware accounting for roughly half of AI-related imports.
- The rest includes products like electrical equipment, networking gear and cooling systems that are necessary to build and operate AI data centers.
- The Trump administration has largely shielded many of those AI-related inputs from broad-based tariffs.
Zoom out: The AI investment and trade dynamic was even more striking in late 2025. Companies poured money into AI hardware in the final three months of the year, but the boost to GDP largely disappeared once imports were factored in.
- The Fed economists note that the net effect of AI investment "varies considerably across quarters, as the drag from net exports of computer, peripherals and parts offsets much of the gross investment in quarters where imports rose sharply."
- They estimate the AI buildout contributed just 0.14 percentage points to GDP — even though spending across relevant categories contributed about 0.75 percentage points before accounting for imports.
- Net imports of AI equipment shaved 0.61 percentage points off growth.
What to watch: Economists anticipate that the economy grew at a 1.8% annualized pace in the April-June period. The report is out on Thursday.
- Goldman Sachs anticipates a rebound in consumer spending, alongside strong business investment that stems from equipment spending related to AI.
The bottom line: The AI boom is forcing economists to rethink how they measure the economy. As more growth comes from technologies that rely on imported hardware and intangible software, the traditional gauges of economic activity may become harder to interpret.
