Intelligent infrastructure

As we have previously written, the frenetic pace of AI investment continues and Morgan Stanley estimates that cloud infrastructure capital spending will increase by nearly USD 110 billion in 2025 to reach USD 412.5 billion. While these investments have been spurred by accelerating usage of AI, with leading model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic already reporting billions in revenues, there remains a concern that AI capital spending has gone too far. However, according to high level analysis by Exante data, AI investment as a percentage of GDP is not out of the ordinary. At the peak of the railroad boom in the 1880s, railroad capital expenditures totalled 6% of US GDP. A the peak of the 5G investment cycle, telecommunications capital spending amounted to 1% of US GDP. This year, Exante estimates AI datacenter investment will reach 1.2% if US GDP. While, datacenter investments depreciate at a much faster rate than railroads, nearly 50% of that spending relates to usage given the role of AI accelerator chips.

Source: Exante Data, July 2025