Despite the slowdown, US growth still has enough to make France green with envy: this can be explained by AI, without which the country would perhaps be in recession.

Despite Donald Trump’s tariffs, the US economy continues to surprise with its astonishing strength. At 3.8% in the second quarter at an annualized rate, growth in the United States was significantly more dynamic than expected. And if GDP grew “only” 1.6% during the first half of the year, the performance remains honorable at a time when the trade war is penalizing world trade. By comparison, France will see no more than 0.7% or 0.8% growth in 2025. And the eurozone would be capped at 1.2% according to the IMF.

And it is not the policies of the American president that we should welcome here.

In fact, Americans can especially thank tech giants like Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle who, through billions of dollars in investments in artificial intelligence (data centers, IT equipment, etc.), have greatly contributed to sustaining the country’s growth.

The analyst states that these investments “have contributed, by themselves, almost as much” to growth “as private consumption, one of the main drivers of the US economy.” Without these billions injected into AI, “the US economy would have been close to stagnation during the last two quarters.”

According to some analysts, it would be even more.

“In the first half of 2025, private investment in computer software and equipment increased considerably in the United States,” explains Bastien Drut, head of strategy and economic studies at CPRAM. “This acceleration was so strong that this segment, which represents 4% of GDP, actually explains 92% of US growth in the first half.”

In its latest forecasts published this week, the IMF also admitted that the race to develop gigantic data centers ($40 billion in June alone, +30%) had stimulated the US economy and offset the harmful impact of customs duties on trade.

Growth with less employment

The same observation for JP Morgan, which assures that investment in “AI adds resilience to the economy at a time when consumption is weakening and rates remain high.” The bank even wonders if AI is not the “new engine of American growth” and if it will not now serve as a barometer of the economy as other sectors, such as construction, once were (“When the building works, anything goes”).

A warning, however: “Every dollar invested in AI will not directly translate into an increase in US GDP. Much of the investments are dedicated to imported technological goods, which has a negative impact on GDP, and efforts to relocate production capacities will involve a long transition process,” reminds JP Morgan.

Another limitation: The growth generated by the artificial intelligence revolution does not provide many jobs. This is confirmed by the latest disappointing figures from the US labor market. “Data centers employ few workers once built, especially compared to a factory or office complex, which limits their multiplier effect through wage-driven consumption,” says Stephanie Aliaga, global markets strategist at JPMorgan.

A recent study by Stanford University also confirmed that the adoption of AI had “severely slowed down the hiring of young graduates in the sectors and jobs most exposed to being replaced by AI,” adds Enguerrand Artaz. “In these sectors, employment of young people aged 22 to 25 has fallen by 13% compared to the least exposed sectors since the end of 2022.”

What productivity gains?

More than AI itself, it is currently the construction of data centers to generate AI capabilities that is driving US GDP. But can this frenzy sustainably sustain the American economy? It’s less safe. “We can raise the question of the sustainability of this explosion of IT investments, (…) especially because sooner or later the question of the profitability of these colossal expenses will arise,” underlines Enguerrand Artaz. According to Deutsche Bank, hyperscalers’ investment spending growth will peak this year, “which means other sources of growth will have to pick up the slack.”

What will happen once data center construction is complete? In theory, artificial intelligence should enable massive productivity gains. Which is already observed in other places but in a very concentrated way. As the IMF noted this week, recalling that these advances had not yet spread to the entire economy and that the existence of a bubble should not be underestimated:

“The current AI boom has some similarities with the Internet bubble of the late 1990s,” the institution stated, considering that “the disappointment generated by the results of AI in terms of income and increased productivity could lead to a brutal revaluation of technology stocks, marking the end of the AI ​​investment boom and the exuberance it caused in the markets, which could have implications for macro-financial stability”.

And even if the productivity increases enabled by AI turn out to be considerable, the IMF points out the risk that these benefits will be captured exclusively by certain sectors and only in rich countries: “The risk is that we find ourselves in a world where productivity increases, but where it is also a source of divergence within and between countries,” declared Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the IMF.