Andrew R. Chow
The AI industry, and specifically its data center investments, are essentially holding up the U.S. economy, accounting for 39% of U.S. GDP growth in the first three quarters of last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The Iran War could threaten that growth in several ways. Paul Kedrosky, an investor and research fellow at MIT’s Institute for the Digital Economy, tells TIME that the onset of the war has made him “vastly more” concerned about the systemic economic risks related to AI, because “the consequences are unknowable in terms of how this ripples through this highly interconnected energy and information grid.”
Energy— Many AI data centers, which train AI systems like ChatGPT and process their queries, are powered by natural gas. While Iran’s first big resource strain has been on oil, gas facilities have been targeted in the Gulf. Analysts say they could take months to repair, leading to higher gas prices worldwide. European natural gas prices surged by as much as 30 percent on Thursday.
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