https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/opinion/ai-economy-affordability.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0FA.udcD.d5xgC8YvVH5i&smid=url-share excerpt:
A.I. is vacuuming up so much of our land, talent, semiconductor chips, building materials and, above all, so much of our money that it is beginning to crowd out the rest of the economy. In other words, A.I. isn’t merely compensating for the weakness in the rest of the economy. It is, at least in part, causing it. Jason Thomas, the research head at the investment firm Carlyle, noted in a January report that data center investment may be swelling to the point that it could consume virtually all the private money available for new nonhousing investments. Researchers, economists and other market analysts are ringing the same alarm. They are particularly worried that the deluge of investment, much of which is plowed into data centers, is beginning to starve the rest of the economy of the money it needs (to say nothing of the talent and physical materials). The money flowing to A.I. is bypassing some of our country’s highest priorities. Start with housing. New homes that could ease the affordability crisis aren’t getting built, as land that could be used for houses is sold instead to data center developers. Consider Prince William County in Northern Virginia, a region that suffers from an estimated shortage of more than 75,000 homes. A residential developer who had purchased land there for just over $50 million, with plans to build homes, ultimately sold a portion of that land to Amazon for $700 million. Land costs are higher — at times more than 17 times as high as they were even three years ago in pockets near Dallas. Scott Finfer, a local residential land developer, told The Wall Street Journal that for home builders, “there’s no possible way you can make those numbers work.” The financiers who help decide how much new housing gets built and where it goes are shifting their money away from homes and into the data center rush. Investment in manufacturing construction declined sharply last year, while spending on data center construction rose nearly 30 percent year over year by the end of the year. Projects to build alternative energy sources and electric vehicle charging infrastructure are also stalling out as builders and supply chains stampede to the more profitable business of data center construction. Then there is venture capital, investments that help determine which industries will drive our economy in the future. A.I. firms captured nearly two-thirds of global venture capital investment in 2025, up from roughly 30 percent in 2022. Michael Novick 323-636-7388https://www.antiracist.org http://www.change-links.org CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The contents of this email message and any attachments are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and/or privileged information and may be legally protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient of this message or their agent, or if this message has been addressed to you in error, please immediately alert the sender by reply email and then delete this message and any attachments. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, copying, or storage of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42626): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42626 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/120429385/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
