So while there is lots of discussion about how much the tech/AI/data centre investment blitz is boosting growth, much of the value added is coming from overseas. This is a net negative for US growth as money is flowing out of the country to the likes of Korea and Taiwan, from which US imports are up 35% and 60% respectively.
The result is the chart below showing the contribution to year-on-year US GDP growth. The black line is the YoY% growth rate with the blue bars showing the contribution from tech capex and AI token spending (including the chips going into data centres). The purple section is the data centre building (the concrete, steel, etc), but then there is the net exports section in orange, which, because of the scale of the trade deficit in tech, is a significant drag on overall growth right now – much of it actually ended up in inventory building of tech products that will be used in coming quarters.
Consequently, the US tech roll-out has been a huge boost to tech-orientated exporting nations. Only three years ago, the US was a net exporter of tech products!