{"id":986871,"date":"2026-08-07T14:05:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/986871\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T14:05:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:05:24","slug":"jamie-dimon-makes-huge-call-on-ai-and-u-s-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/986871\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Dimon makes huge call on AI and U.S. economy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AI<\/a> CapEx fatigue continues to sour investors as hyperscalers shell out billions on data centers, chips, and power infrastructure without a clear timetable for returns. <\/p>\n

Wall Street<\/a>‘s been bracing for evidence of the spending boom being a drag on margins, free cash flows, and earnings. <\/p>\n

Some of the recent Big Tech results added to those fears.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I covered<\/a> Alphabet (GOOGL<\/a>), which spent $44.9 billion on capital expenditures in Q2, exceeding its $39.1 billion in operating cash flows and pushing quarterly free cash flow<\/a> to negative $5.9 billion. <\/p>\n

At the same time, as I covered<\/a>, Amazon’s (AMZN<\/a>) trailing-12-month free cash flow swung from an $18.2 billion inflow to a $7.6 billion outflow, as property-and-equipment spending shot up by $66.1 billion, mainly due to AI investments.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, AI stocks such as Nvidia<\/a> (NVDA<\/a>) have had investors laughing all the way to the bank in recent years.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

For context, according to Seeking Alpha<\/a>, Nvidia generated a gain of more than 390% over the past three years, meaning a $10,000 investment would now be worth roughly $49,000, including about $39,000 in profit.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Surprisingly, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon<\/a> offered a contrasting take on the matter, arguing that the AI buildout could be far more economically consequential than skeptics assume. <\/p>\n

In many ways, his comments recast the near-term debate, raising the question of whether AI spending is eroding shareholder value or quietly becoming a major engine of U.S. growth.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Jamie Dimon sees AI spending powering the economy\u00a0<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Dimon is looking past the immediate pressures AI spending exerts on corporate cash flows. <\/p>\n

The veteran banker and JPMorgan CEO believes the AI buildout needs to be viewed as a broader investment cycle that’s feeding through the U.S. economy. <\/p>\n

Speaking to CNBC, as cited by Business Insider<\/a>, Dimon acknowledged that his prediction might go wrong, but the spending surge will ultimately “play out and pay out.” <\/p>\n

More AI:<\/strong> <\/p>\n

According to him, these companies aren’t committing hundreds of billions of dollars blindly. In fact, he believes there is a method to the apparent madness in raising the cost of developing frontier models, running those models for customers, and meeting growing computing demand. <\/p>\n

The advanced training model is one piece of the puzzle and incurs a massive upfront investment. However, inference (operating cost of AI systems) creates an ongoing need for more advanced chips, servers, networking equipment, and energy. <\/p>\n

“The need is going up dramatically,” Dimon said, which means the infrastructure race reflects rising usage rather than enthusiasm alone. <\/p>\n

On the economy, he estimates that AI-related spending will increase by roughly 1% of GDP<\/a> this year, with another comparable increase expected next year. That makes the AI buildout more than an insular Silicon Valley story. <\/p>\n

Specifically, he pointed to the tremendous demand for steel and cement, highlighting how AI CapEx needs can flow into industrial companies, utilities, engineering firms, and local labor markets. <\/p>\n

The spillover is already backed by the numbers. For context, the U.S. private data-center construction spending<\/a> jumped to an annualized $68.3 billion in June, up 45.8% year over year.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Moreover, Dimon said he wasn’t concerned about investors cooling on AI stocks, saying it was “not high on the list” of risks worrying him.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

<\/a> Jamie Dimon says AI infrastructure spending is already strengthening the U.S. economy.John Lamparski\/Getty Images JPMorgan is playing both sides of the AI boom\u00a0<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Dimon’s view is not a big surprise, though, considering the bank’s skin in the game. <\/p>\n

Over the past couple of years, the bank’s been automating operations with AI while earning fees from companies financing the buildout. <\/p>\n

According to a recent company update<\/a>, JPMorgan said it was allocating about $20 billion to tech this year across 6,000 applications. <\/p>\n

Moreover, its internal large-language-model platform is used by 150,000 employees weekly, with users estimating it saves each person 4 hours. Additionally, Dimon added that the bank has roughly 1,000 AI use cases, including 50 high-priority applications across fraud, risk, marketing, hedging, and document analysis.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

On top of that, the bank’s been raking in a ton of money, monetizing AI through capital markets. <\/p>\n

JPMorgan serves over 11,000 startups with more than 550 specialized bankers. For perspective, in Q2<\/a>, investment banking fees jumped 30% to $3.3 billion, driven by stronger equity underwriting. Moreover, JPMorgan’s investment-banking revenue surged 45% year over year to $3.9 billion.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Also, JPMorgan<\/a> was a bookrunner on SpaceX<\/a>‘s IPO<\/a>, which sold 638.9 million shares and raised about $85.7 billion. <\/p>\n

The biggest risk may be capex concentration<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Dimon’s AI optimism is backed by real demand, but the spending cycle remains unusually dependent on a small group of businesses. <\/p>\n

For some color, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft (MSFT<\/a>), and Meta Platforms (META<\/a>) are collectively expected to spend $735 billion to $760 billion on capital expenditures during 2026, according to Statista<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Amazon alone plans roughly $220 billion, and Alphabet<\/a> recently bumped its range to $195 billion to $205 billion.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

So essentially, a handful of balance sheets are creating demand for AI chips, electricity, construction, and whatnot, and they are big enough to affect national investment.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there’s evidence, especially based on recent tech results, that the spending is generating commercial returns.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Alphabet’s cloud sales<\/a> surged 82% to $24.8 billion, while its backlog reached $514 billion, with just over 50% expected to convert into sales within two years. In addition, Microsoft reported 40% Azure growth and a $627 billion commercial backlog, Bloomberg<\/a> reported.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

However, these numbers are far from sufficient to eliminate the concentration problem. <\/p>\n

For instance, looking at Q3 figures<\/a>, Microsoft’s backlog grew 99% overall, including OpenAI commitments, but only 26% excluding OpenAI, underscoring the tremendous impact of a single major customer. <\/p>\n

Additionally, the Federal Reserve<\/a> offered another important qualification. <\/p>\n

According to Fed research<\/a>, AI-related investment contributed meaningfully to recent growth, but imported servers and computing equipment offset part of the domestic GDP benefit.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Also, its researchers found that even though corporate AI adoption is rising, usage remains mostly shallow at many firms. <\/p>\n

It means that even if a couple of hyperscalers slow their expansion in protecting cash flows, suppliers might face weaker orders before today’s massive backlogs are recognized.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Dimon could be right about the eventual AI payoff, yet the durability of that support depends a ton on a handful of businesses shelling out money at historically exceptional levels. <\/p>\n

As the Joker or Michael Burry might say<\/a>, the end is nigh…\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Related: Palantir CEO escalates Microsoft’s AI warning<\/strong><\/a> <\/p>\n

This story was originally published by TheStreet<\/a> on Aug 6, 2026, where it first appeared in the Economy<\/a> section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AI CapEx fatigue continues to sour investors as hyperscalers shell out billions on data centers, chips, and power…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":986872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,395709,738,265720,87004,395708,21279,1998,395710,158,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-986871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ai-infrastructure-spending","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-construction-spending","tag-free-cash-flow","tag-free-cash-flows","tag-jamie-dimon","tag-jpmorgan","tag-operating-cash-flows","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117054611476603581","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=986871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/986872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=986871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=986871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=986871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}