Here's something to think about next time you're chatting with an AI chatbot: the American economy might literally depend on it. According to fresh market analysis, the United States would currently be in a recession if not for the extraordinary amount of money being poured into artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The Numbers Behind the AI Economy

Analysis by The Kobeissi Letter, drawing on data from BofA Global Research, reveals just how much economic heavy lifting AI is doing right now. During the first six months of 2025, the U.S. economy grew by 1.6%. Sounds modest, right? Well, AI spending alone accounted for 62.5% of that growth—a full percentage point of the 1.6% total.

"Without AI, the US would be in a recession," The Kobeissi Letter noted on X. That's not hyperbole. Strip out AI-related investment, and the numbers tell a very different story about the health of the American economy.

Tech Spending Reaches Historic Proportions

The scale of investment is frankly staggering. According to data from Topdown Charts and LSEG, technology and related stocks now comprise a record 45% of all capital expenditure across the S&P 500. Let that sink in: nearly half of all corporate investment by America's biggest companies is flowing into tech.

This percentage has climbed almost 20 percentage points over the past decade. More remarkably, it now exceeds the roughly 39% peak witnessed during the 2000 dot-com bubble—you know, that period we generally remember for irrational exuberance and subsequent disaster.

The divergence between "new economy" and traditional sectors couldn't be starker. Real private nonresidential fixed investment in data centers has rocketed nearly 300% over the past three years. Meanwhile, inflation-adjusted investment in conventional structures like offices, hotels, warehouses, and factories? Essentially flat.

Traditional Sectors Left Behind

As tech spending goes "through the roof," commodity sectors in the S&P 500 have seen their capital expenditure weight cut in half since 2015, dropping to just 15%. According to Kobeissi's analysis, that's hovering near the lowest level recorded in the past 45 years.

The money is clearly flowing in one direction, and it's not toward building factories or office towers.

Is This Sustainable or Another Bubble?

Naturally, not everyone is convinced this boom has legs. Peter Andersen, CIO of Andersen Capital Management, has raised concerns about massive "overbuilding" in the face of questionable demand. His point: major tools like ChatGPT aren't exactly "locking up" from overuse, suggesting capacity might be outpacing actual need.

But Shay Boloor, a strategist at Futurum Equities, argues this cycle is fundamentally different from the dot-com era. He contrasts the idle fiber optic cables of 1999—infrastructure built but barely used—with today's reality of roughly 80% GPU utilization. In other words, the AI infrastructure being built is actually being put to work.

Investment Options for the AI Surge

For investors looking to gain exposure to this AI spending wave, here are several tech-focused ETFs to consider:

Whether this represents a genuine economic transformation or another bubble waiting to burst remains the trillion-dollar question. What's undeniable is that right now, AI spending isn't just supporting economic growth—it essentially is the growth.