FX Special Report: Charts on AI, Markets and Marx

Research evidence excerpt

FX Special Report: Charts on AI, Markets and Marx

Key Points

1. The AI Capex Boom is global. Approximately 60% of hyperscaler capex is leaking outside of the US, predominantly to north Asia

2. The AI Capex Boom is inflationary. There is no compelling evidence of an impact on the labour market but a lot of evidence of demand-side inflation.

3. AI risks global growth divergence. After the Capex Boom is over, productivity benefits will accrue to the users of AI. Current usage is highly correlated

with GDP per capita levels; richer countries are more intense users of AI and poorer ones are laggards. There is not that much differentiation within

developed economies.

4. The USD will be the predominant beneficiary of future AI income streams. The USD is currently only moderately supported by the AI capex boom,

however, the dominance of US technology companies suggests they will reap future profits on the capex. Reasonable assumptions suggest a roughly 1% of

GDP positive impact on the US current account via higher services exports.

5. The social and economic disruption of AI could vastly outweigh the productivity benefits if AI displaces rather than augments labour. If this is

the case, it will require huge government intervention. The beneficiaries will be those countries able to manage this political economy transition most

successfully.

6. The intensifying technological competition between the US and China creates significant uncertainty. While the US currently holds the lead on the

frontier of AI technology, China is leading in the industrial and consumer application of AI which may mean US exceptionalism is overstated. There is also a

question mark on the monetization of closed form versus open source AI models.

7.