AI spending added 0.9 points to third-quarter US GDP growth

Morgan Stanley's numbers show AI investment's share of US growth has more than quadrupled since 2024, led by data centers rather than apps Artificial intelligence is no longer a rounding error in the US economy. AI spending added 0.9 percentage points to annualized real GDP growth in the third quarter of 2026, according to figures highlighted in Morgan Stanley’s analysis. Two years ago, that same contribution was 0.2 percentage points. The numbers behind the boom The trajectory is steep. AI investment contributed 0.2 percentage points to growth in 2024, then 0.5 points in 2025, before hitting 0.9 points in the third quarter of 2026. The broader economy had a strong quarter, too. US real GDP grew at a 3.4% annualized rate in the third quarter, up from 2.2% in the second quarter. Do the arithmetic and AI accounts for a little more than a quarter of that 3.4% headline pace. Business investment did much of the heavy lifting. It jumped 12.7% on an annualized basis in the quarter, contributing 1.78 percentage points to overall growth, with data centers and AI-related infrastructure leading the surge. The detail worth underlining: more than three-quarters of AI’s contribution to the GDP i...