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💾 Lead story: AI’s GDP boost

Exante Data estimates that AI investment is already contributing around 0.7% to US GDP, extrapolated from Nvidia’s data center revenues. That spending wave has pushed AI-related infrastructure investment to 20% of the railroad boom’s peak in the 1880s, already surpassing the dot-com telecom frenzy. But unlike railroads, Paul Kedrosky notes, these data centers are short-lived — riding steep depreciation curves and demanding constant reinvestment. We’re spending historic sums to build disposable infrastructure. The economy is making a massive bet: AI will boost productivity, or else… [Jens Nordvig, Paul Kedrosky]

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Key signals, quick scan

A 30-second scan of four secondary signals that hint at where the curve is bending.

• 🚨 OpenAI’s formal advisory board warns that frontier model risk is incompatible with growth-at-all-costs incentives, urging OpenAI to halt plans for profit-focused restructuring. Big questions, with big consequences, hang on Sam Altman’s response. [AP News]

• 🖐🏻 Meta has refused to sign the EU’s voluntary AI code of practice, intended to guide companies in complying with the EU’s AI Act, arguing that the request exceeds the law's terms. Meta is the sole big tech company to put its head above the parapet to date, and is making a strategic bet that not making any early concessions will make it easier to lobby against hard compliance. [Bloomberg]

• 💡 Eric Schmidt says the cost of intelligence is falling 10x per year, leading to an “industrialization of platforms” and a new technological layer for civilization​. [YouTube/Cerebras Systems]

• 🎥 Netflix has confirmed it’s using generative AI shots in a full-length series, “El Eternauta”, showing synthetic footage is moving from experimental shorts to big-budget productions. The shift can slash VFX budgets and reduce timelines, but comes with a potential reputational cost – Hollywood unions have already shown themselves willing to strike over AI job displacement. [The Guardian]

Data of the week

Five data points that show how the world is changing.

• 🎓 Contrary to expectations, graduate tech employment is rising in the US [X/John Burn-Murdoch]

• 💰Hyperscaler capex is set to shoot up from $477 billion in 2022-24 to $1.15 trillion in 2025-27. [X/Beth Kindig]

• 📰 Substack’s rising influence in the US media landscape is evident as its platform now attracts more visits than both The Wall Street Journal and CBS News. [Azeem Azhar]

• 📈 Norges Bank Investment Management, Norway’s sovereign‑wealth‑fund manager, claims Claude for financial services has driven ~20% productivity gains, equivalent to 213,000 hours of work. [Anthropic]

• New energy trucks (electric & LNG) account for 25% of China’s new truck market in H1 2025. [Reuters]

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