The White House has placed artificial intelligence at the centre of America’s economic future, explicitly likening today’s AI-driven transformation to the industrial revolution that reshaped global economies in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In a policy paper titled “Artificial Intelligence and the Great Divergence,” US policymakers outline how AI is emerging as the defining force behind productivity growth, capital investment, and international economic leadership. The report frames artificial intelligence not as a narrow technology trend, but as a structural shift comparable to railways, electricity, and mechanised manufacturing.
According to the document, AI is already influencing the trajectory of US economic growth and could widen prosperity gaps between nations depending on how quickly they invest, adopt, and build supporting infrastructure.
AI Moves to the Core of US Economic Strategy
Artificial intelligence has rapidly transitioned from a research focus to a national economic priority. The White House paper argues that AI now represents a meaningful share of US economic activity, particularly through large-scale investment in infrastructure such as data centres, advanced chips, cloud platforms, and supporting software.
In the first half of 2025 alone, AI-related investment is estimated to have lifted US gross domestic product by 1.3%, a figure the report compares to the early economic impact of railway construction during the industrial revolution.
Rather than consumption or government spending driving growth, the US economy is currently being fuelled by capital deployment—specifically investment in data processing equipment, specialised buildings, digital infrastructure, and enterprise software.
Investment in these categories rose 28% in early 2025, with AI-related infrastructure accounting for roughly one quarter of all US investment over the year, according to the paper.
Productivity as the Long-Term Growth Engine
The report stresses that sustained economic expansion ultimately depends on productivity gains, not short-term stimulus. In this context, AI is positioned as the most powerful productivity tool since mechanisation.
The paper presents a wide range of estimates for AI’s economic impact:
- Conservative models suggest single-digit GDP growth increases
- More aggressive forecasts project up to 20% productivity gains within a decade
- Long-term scenarios envision GDP growth exceeding 45% as AI increasingly substitutes for human labour in certain tasks
While the White House acknowledges uncertainty around the upper bounds of AI’s impact, it argues that even modest gains would have transformative effects when applied across the entire economy.
The Infrastructure Boom Behind the AI Economy
A central theme of the paper is that AI’s economic power is inseparable from physical infrastructure.
Just as railways, factories, and power grids underpinned the industrial revolution, today’s AI economy relies on:
- Massive data centres
- High-performance computing clusters
- Semiconductor supply chains
- Fibre networks and cloud platforms
The report notes that training compute used by AI models has increased approximately fourfold per year since 2010. At the same time, the complexity and duration of tasks AI systems can complete has expanded rapidly, with task length doubling roughly every seven months over the past six years.
Meanwhile, the cost of AI output has collapsed. Depending on the task and model, the cost per token of AI-generated output has fallen by factors ranging from nine to as much as nine hundred per year, dramatically expanding the technology’s commercial viability.
From Experimentation to Everyday Use
The White House paper argues that AI adoption has crossed a critical threshold.
By late 2025:
- 78% of organisations reported using AI, up from 55% the previous year
- 40% of US workers were using generative AI tools in their jobs
- Nearly half of US businesses were paying for AI subscriptions
These figures are presented as evidence that AI has moved beyond experimentation into routine production use across sectors including finance, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, and professional services.
The report suggests that this shift mirrors historical patterns seen during the industrial revolution, when mechanised tools initially augmented labour before becoming essential to everyday operations.
AI and the New Global Economic Divide
Beyond domestic growth, the White House frames AI as a driver of international economic divergence.
The paper argues that countries leading in AI investment, model development, and compute capacity will experience faster growth than those that lag. According to the report, the United States currently holds an advantage across several key dimensions:
- Private AI investment
- Frontier model development
- Compute capacity and infrastructure buildout
In contrast, the European Union’s share of global GDP has declined steadily since 1980, and the report notes that Europe trails the US in AI-related investment, construction activity, software development, and overall capacity.
China remains a major AI player, but the paper points out that a significant portion of Chinese model training still relies on US-designed hardware, underscoring continued US influence over critical components of the AI supply chain.
AI as a Tool of Economic and Geopolitical Strategy
The document makes clear that AI policy is no longer confined to technology regulation—it is now intertwined with trade, diplomacy, and national security.
Trade agreements and foreign policy initiatives are described as reinforcing US leadership by encouraging international partners to purchase US-designed AI chips, cloud services, and infrastructure.
By embedding AI into global supply chains, the US aims to maintain technological leverage while expanding export opportunities for domestic companies.
Incentives, Deregulation, and the Push to Build Faster
To accelerate AI deployment, the White House advocates a coordinated national strategy built around investment incentives and regulatory streamlining.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act plays a central role in this approach. The legislation provides:
- Tax incentives for data centres and IT infrastructure
- Financial breaks for large-scale compute facilities
- Faster permitting and construction timelines
The report argues that these measures are designed to lift GDP growth by more than one percentage point per year over the medium term.
Deregulation is also framed as a productivity tool. By reducing compliance costs and barriers to entry, policymakers believe the AI sector can move faster, foster competition, and accelerate innovation.
The Energy Challenge Behind AI Expansion
One of the most pressing constraints identified in the report is energy.
AI data centres are highly electricity-intensive, and the paper projects that AI infrastructure could consume up to 12% of total US electricity by 2028.
This makes energy availability a strategic concern, not just an operational one.
The report links future AI leadership directly to the ability of national power grids to deliver reliable, affordable energy at scale. Control over energy supply, grid resilience, and generation capacity is positioned as a prerequisite for sustained AI dominance.
In this framing, energy policy becomes inseparable from technology policy.
Lessons From the Industrial Revolution
By comparing the AI era to the industrial revolution, the White House highlights several recurring patterns:
- Early investment creates lasting advantages
- Infrastructure determines the pace of adoption
- Productivity gains reshape labour markets
- Economic leadership compounds over time
Just as nations that industrialised first gained outsized economic power, the report suggests that early AI leaders will enjoy long-term growth advantages that are difficult to displace.
Implications for Businesses and Investors
For businesses, the message is clear: alignment with national AI strategy matters.
The paper argues that companies building AI systems consistent with US policy goals—such as infrastructure investment, domestic supply chains, and productivity enhancement—will be positioned within a dominant economic ecosystem.
Enterprises that delay AI adoption or underinvest in infrastructure risk falling behind competitors that can scale faster and operate more efficiently.
A Defining Moment for Global Growth
The report concludes that the AI era represents a turning point in global economic history.
Countries that lead in AI investment, infrastructure, and adoption are expected to grow faster than the global average, while laggards face the risk of long-term stagnation.
The United States, according to the White House, is deliberately aligning policy, capital, energy, and trade to secure its leadership position.
As the industrial revolution reshaped the world two centuries ago, the AI revolution is now poised to define the next phase of global growth—this time at digital speed.
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