The United States is investing $10.3 trillion in data centers and artificial intelligence systems in the largest single-industry expansion as a share of GDP in the history of the national economy. This buildout involves a scale of spending that exceeds every prior infrastructure boom and will run through the end of the decade, according to projections from the Brookings Institution published by the Wall Street Journal.

To achieve a standard 10% return on this investment, data centers must generate approximately $3.7 trillion in annual revenue by 2032, according to analysis from the Brookings Institution. This target dwarfs the combined $100 billion current annual revenue of industry leaders OpenAI and Anthropic. The current spending averages 3.63% of annual US GDP, surpassing the railroad peak of 2.24% from 1870-1890 and the telecom expansion of 1.1%, while simultaneously consuming scarce electricity and labor resources.