Viewpoint: The growth rate of U.S. AI investment may peak in the fourth quarter and decline in 2027.

Shenwan Hongyuan released a macro research report stating that U.S. AI investment growth is likely to peak around the fourth quarter of this year, entering a decline phase in 2027. The report notes that roughly 74% of capital expenditure in the global AI industry chain flows to data centers. As of the second quarter of 2026, hyperscale cloud providers account for 66% of total capital expenditure in the AI stack, making them the primary spenders. Per Bloomberg consensus forecasts, the five major U.S. cloud providers—Amazon, Google, Meta, Oracle, Microsoft—will see their combined capital expenditure exceed $800 billion in 2026, with a year-on-year growth rate of around 94%, accounting for approximately 2.5% of U.S. GDP. Their capital expenditure will continue to expand in 2027 and 2028, but growth rates are projected to slow to 40% and 10% respectively. On the allocation front, around 74% of global AI industry chain capital expenditure goes to data centers, with about 55% of that amount invested in servers and GPUs. Based on project-level data calculations, Shenwan Hongyuan estimates the average data center construction cycle is roughly 20 months, with an average shelving rate of around 33%; annual investment is primarily determined by existing plans and ongoing projects. Under three shelving rate scenarios (20%, 33%, 45%), all calculations point to the peak of U.S. AI investment growth likely in the fourth quarter of 2026—about one quarter later than the market consensus on the five major cloud providers’ capital expenditure growth rate—making a shift to a growth decline phase in 2027 a high-probability event.