Christopher Mims 🤌 Profile picture
WSJ tech columnist and author of Arriving Today, about the insane, around-the-world journey all the stuff you ordered takes on its way to your front door.
Aug 1 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The AI infrastructure build-out is so gigantic that in the past 6 months, it contributed more to the growth of the U.S. economy than /all of consumer spending/

The 'magnificent 7' spent more than $100 billion on data centers and the like in the past three months *alone*

1/🧵 chart: capital expenditures, quarterly - shows meta, Google Microsoft and Amazon collectively spending nearly $100 billion on capex in the past quarter As @pkedrosky has written, as a % of GDP, spending on AI infra has already exceeded spending on telecom and internet infrastructure from the dot-com boom—and it’s still growing.

One explanation for the U.S. economy’s ongoing strength is that this spending is so big it’s acting as a sort of private-sector stimulus program.

2/đź§µ

paulkedrosky.com/honey-ai-capex…
Mar 4, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Something quietly revolutionary has happened in the auto industry and too few people have noticed:

Many EVs now cost the same or less than gas-powered vehicles.

Really! Even though their list prices remain higher.

Here's how that works.

1/

wsj.com/articles/elect… Lots of people look at the list price of an EV and think "meh, can't afford the premium"

But 85% of people finance the purchase of a new vehicle.

Which means what matters to most people is their *monthly* cost to own / operate that vehicle.

2/