The $10 trillion question: Financing the AI buildout

Brookings (institute research) · 8 Oct 2026

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AI is often described as a software story, but the boom is also a massive physical investment in data centers, power systems, and specialized chips. A new BPEA paper projects that this buildout will total $10.3 trillion from 2025 to 2032, an average of 3.63% of U.S. GDP per year and larger relative to the economy than past booms in railroads, highways, and telecommunications. On this episode of the B rookings Podcast on Economic Activity , Aaron Klein talks to the paper’s author, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh about what this means for transparency and risk. EBERLY: Welcome to season nine of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity. I’m Jan Eberly, the James R. and Helen D. Russell Professor of Finance at Northwestern University. And this season, we’ll be listening to discussions about papers from the fall 2026 Brookings Papers on Economic Activity conference, hosted by Brookings in September. STEINSSON: And I’m Jón Steinsson, Marek Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. We are the co-editors of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity , a semi-annual conference and journal that pairs rigorous research with real-time policy analysis to address the most urgent economic challenges of the day. EBERLY: Once again, we have a great lineup of timely topics, energy markets, inflation, migration’s effects on labor and housing markets, financing AI, and more. Over the course of this season, we’ll hear a lot more about the conference papers and importantly, how decision-makers should be thinking about the topics they explore. STEINSSON: This episode is about the AI boom, but it’s about an aspect of the AI boom that is not always at the center of attention, how we’re actually paying for all the AI investments that are going on at the moment. Aaron Klein, senior fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings, speaks with author Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh of Columbia Business School about his new paper, “Financing the AI Build-Out.” EBERLY: The number

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Published: 2026 (recently)
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The $10 trillion question: Financing the AI buildout

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