The AI Build-Out Is Becoming the Biggest Economic Bet in U.S. History
Average annual infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP Telecom and fiber 1996-2003 Canals 1836-41 Railroads 1870-90 Electrification 1905-25 Highways 1956-73 AI 2025-32 0.66% 2.24% 0.5% 1.13% 1.1% 3.63% Time frames 1850 1900 1950 2000 Source: Stijn van Nieuwerburgh Note: AI spending is estimated. Average annual infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP 2040 3.63% AI (2025-32) Telecom and fiber (1996-2003) 2000 1.1% Highways (1956-73) 1.13% 1950 Time frames Electrification (1905-25) 0.5% 1900 Railroads (1870-90) 2.24% 1850 Canals (1836-41) 0.66% Note: AI spending is estimated. Source: Stijn van Nieuwerburgh Average annual infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP 2040 3.63% AI (2025-32) Telecom and fiber (1996-2003) 2000 1.1% Highways (1956-73) 1.13% 1950 Time frames Electrification (1905-25) 0.5% 1900 Railroads (1870-90) 2.24% 1850 Canals (1836-41) 0.66% Note: AI spending is estimated.
- ▪Average annual infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP Telecom and fiber 1996-2003 Canals 1836-41 Railroads 1870-90 Electrification 1905-25 Highways 1956-73 AI 2025-32 0.66% 2.24% 0.5% 1.13% 1.1% 3.63% Time frames 1850 1900 1950 2000
- ▪Average annual infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP 2040 3.63% AI (2025-32) Telecom and fiber (1996-2003) 2000 1.1% Highways (1956-73) 1.13% 1950 Time frames Electrification (1905-25) 0.5% 1900 Railroads (1870-90) 2.24% 1850 Canal
- ▪Source: Stijn van Nieuwerburgh Average annual infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP 2040 3.63% AI (2025-32) Telecom and fiber (1996-2003) 2000 1.1% Highways (1956-73) 1.13% 1950 Time frames Electrification (1905-25) 0.5% 1900 Railr
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| Original publisher | The Wall Street Journal |
| Canonical URL | https://www.wsj.com/economy/the-ai-build-out-is-becoming-the-biggest-economic-bet-in-u-s-history-c60716dd |
| Publication time | Thu, 24 Sep 2026 03:24:33 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-24T03:35:12.714Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-24T03:35:12.714Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | GK26idoZFhCE · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Wall Street Journal.