The American Ledger

The American Ledger

This ledger measures how the United States has paid for its future against the economy that paid for it, and what the country is underwriting now.

The five largest AI spenders will invest the equivalent of of US GDP this year. A Brookings Papers scenario puts all US data-center investment at a year through 2032, above every other bet on this flag.

Table view
Average yearly spending during each build as a share of GDP

History

The flag’s thirteen bets, bound as a passport: what each cost against the economy of its day, how it was financed and what it built. Each document is drawn after the paper of its era.

Now

What the country is building this year, and who is paying for it.

of the five largest spenders plan to invest more in 2026 than all five did together in 2020. Amazon passed that mark in the first half.

Table view
Capital spending by company and calendar year, $ billions

AI campuses are planned at about a gigawatt or more, together , or of the country’s nuclear capacity. Gas-fired power is being built or proposed for of them.

    This year, for the first time, the five largest spenders are set to invest more than their operations generate. In the first half, Alphabet’s long-term debt more than doubled and Amazon’s nearly did.

    Utilities now expect of new peak demand within five years, the forecast of 2022. The grid is not being built at that pace.

    The construction boom has changed hands. Chip-plant spending has more than halved since mid-2024, and in data centers moved back ahead for the first time since 2021.

    Next

    What the next decade asks for, what the public balance sheet can carry, and what it could return.

    Federal debt held by the public reached of GDP in fiscal 2025. CBO projects it will pass the 1946 record by 2030 and reach by 2036.

    Published targets and projections run up to 9.3 times where the country stands today. The widest gap is in high-voltage transmission.

    Underwrite the next decade

    Estimates of AI’s payoff run from 0.07 to 1.7 points of extra growth a year, worth to of extra output in 2036.

    Most of the next decade’s bets will sit on private balance sheets.

    Sources and method