One signal

AI investment is supporting the US economy while also pushing up hardware import prices and adding to companies’ costs, according to Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok in a Bloomberg interview.

Why it matters

Slok said AI hardware had continued to drive August’s increase in import prices, alongside wider commodity-price volatility linked to the Iran war. His point is less “robots have taken over” than “the spending spree has landed in the economic plumbing”. That makes AI a macroeconomic story as well as a technology one. The investment may be helping growth today, but higher equipment and operating costs could make the boom less self-fuelling than the headlines suggest. Is AI investment genuinely broadening US growth, or merely moving the cost of the boom around the economy?

Discuss: Is AI investment genuinely broadening US growth, or merely moving the cost of the boom around the economy?

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