IMF says AI could lift global growth by 0.5% a year

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said AI's positive demand shock is now pulling against the negative energy supply shock caused by geopolitics, and these two forces affect different parts of the world very unevenly. Global AI investment as a share of GDP is expected to match or even exceed what the world once spent building railways, power grids and telecom networks. AI hardware and related tech products already make up more than a tenth of global goods trade, and the share keeps rising. IMF research shows that if used well, AI could add 0.5 percentage points to global annual growth. Kept up for ten years, that would create an economy the size of ASEAN. But the shift from the current building boom to real gains could pose the biggest risk to financial stability, so spreading AI access worldwide matters.