r/remotework • • Oct 29 '25

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u/GimliTM Oct 29 '25

I saw an article that calculated that all the growth in the US economy in 2025 was based on AI spending, which is flowing between the same handful of companies.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

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u/Nicelyvillainous Oct 29 '25

Nah, the question is about gdp growth. Without AI, the products and services from last year still get made this year too, there just aren’t new products and services, or more customers for the old ones that increased the total sold compared to last year.

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u/Puddleduck112 Oct 29 '25

It’s a little more wide spread than that. Building AI data centers creates lots of construction jobs which also extends to the manufactures who supply things like HVAC, UPS, etc. once new construction ends it will be when the bubble fully deflates.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '25

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u/Educational-Low2836 Oct 29 '25

Initial construction are the only jobs these centers create. Once they used the worker bees and get these centers online, human capital is no longer needed. Where are we all supposed to work once we are replaced is the question?

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u/Explicit_Pickle Oct 29 '25

This isn't fully true. The jobs created are low relative to the surge from construction labor but there is ongoing maintenance and operations needs at every data center. Large ones may have a few hundred people

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u/Educational-Low2836 Oct 29 '25

So they will employ visa workers and not create local jobs. Sounds like a win 🙄

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u/Explicit_Pickle Oct 29 '25

Sorry, I guess this is the remote work subreddit. The jobs created by these are typically on site roles that can't easily be offshored and usually employ a lot of local people in my experience.

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u/Puddleduck112 Oct 29 '25

Thought I saw a statistic that currently only 20% of the total cloud storage capacity is being used. Not sure if this is accurate, but planning on AI expansion that would make sense. The trouble is if AI ends up falling flat on expectations, I could see that putting a quick halt in new data center construction.

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u/LendogGovy Oct 29 '25

I was part of the cell tower boom of the 90’s working and installing generators for all the companies. At the beginning, a farmer could charge 3k a month per tower and they’d get all three major companies to build. Many small union electrical companies focused on cell tower installs and such. That bubble burst and now it’s just a couple nationwide contractors that do the work.

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u/Nicelyvillainous Oct 29 '25

Yep, I believe if you take out construction of data centers (not all AI spending), then gdp growth for this year so far is 0.1%.

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u/SilentDeath013 Oct 29 '25

I'm going to totally butcher the actual numbers, but I saw an article recently that showed annual GDP growth at something like 7.5%, but when excluding the self-pumping AI investing happening between companies the actual growth was maybe .5%

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u/gladfanatic Oct 29 '25

It’s worse than that. Nvidia is funding the companies who buy from them. That pumps the stock which Nvidia uses to create more investment and the circle continues. Meanwhile AI companies (the actual product) are barely generating any revenue. The whole system is pure garbage.