The U.S. AI boom has not materially widened the current account deficit, with investment averaging 21.5% of GDP from 2023 through early 2026, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said.
The bank published “Has the AI Boom Impacted the U.S. Current Account?” in its Liberty Street Economics series on Oct. 14. The analysis found government dissaving, rather than AI-related investment, drove most of the wider external deficit.
Author Julian di Giovanni examined saving, investment and current account data since 2018 and compared the AI expansion with the dot-com era. The paper said the current account deficit widened from an average 2.2% of GDP in 2015-2019 to about 3.7% since 2023.
AI-related goods reached 23% of U.S. imports in 2025, but higher imports did not necessarily increase the external deficit, the author said. Gross domestic investment averaged 21.3% of GDP in the five years before the pandemic, compared with 21.5% from 2023 through the first quarter of 2026. It averaged 21.1% over the past four quarters.
The author found investment in data centers and information-processing equipment offset weakness elsewhere without lifting the aggregate investment rate. The paper attributed that outcome to fading factory construction, soft spending on nontechnology structures and equipment, and a recent decline in residential investment.
Private saving averaged 20.8% of GDP since 2023, down half a percentage point from its pre-pandemic average of 21.3%, the bank said. By comparison, private saving fell nearly 3 percentage points between 1995 and 2000 as households spent gains from rising equity wealth, the author found.
Business saving averaged 10.9% of GDP over the past four quarters, close to the pre-pandemic average of about 10.5%, the paper said. That compared with a trough of about 8.8% in late 2000 and early 2001. The author attributed the difference to AI investment being concentrated among companies, with business saving averaging 10.9% of GDP over the past four quarters.
Government saving fell from about negative 2.2% of GDP in 2015-2019 to about negative 4% since 2023, the paper said. Relative to the fourth quarter of 2019, government dissaving accounted for about 1.75 percentage point of a roughly 2.4-point widening in the saving-investment gap. Lower private saving contributed about half a point, while higher investment contributed essentially nothing, the author found.
The author said larger technology-company capital spending plans for 2026 and 2027 could change the result. Weak residential and nontechnology investment may not persist, the paper said. If those drags fade while AI spending accelerates, higher investment and lower business saving would increase the current account deficit, the author said.
