Paper: AI buildout to cost $10.3T over 8 years, needs $3.7T annual revenue by 2032

AccBalanced · x · 2026-09-26

A new BPEA paper by Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh estimates the AI infrastructure buildout will cost $10.3 trillion over the next 8 years. To deliver a 10% return, investors would need $3.7 trillion in annual revenues by 2032 — roughly 9% of US GDP.

The thread also touches on datacenter financing: why would Meta pay more in interest just to nominally remain an "asset-light" business? The linked writeup is called one of the clearest explanations of datacenter finance.

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