Energy SIG: AI’s Economic Impact Starts With Infrastructure: Data Centers, Power Investment, and the Macroeconomic Outlook 

While artificial intelligence is often discussed in terms of productivity and jobs, recent macroeconomic research shows that its near-term economic impact is being driven primarily by capital investment—particularly data centers, power infrastructure, and energy-intensive equipment. Drawing on Moody’s AI macroeconomic scenarios, this session examines how AI is reshaping growth through physical investment, how rising infrastructure and energy costs can influence inflation and regional competitiveness, and why energy availability is becoming a critical factor in where AI-driven economic growth ultimately occurs

Sohini Chowdhurry | FRM / Senior Director, Moody’s Analytics

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Explain how AI’s recent contribution to economic growth is being driven primarily by demand-side channels, especially business investment and wealth effects, rather than broad productivity gains to date.
• Describe the paper’s decomposition of AI-driven growth that includes investment tied to data centers and “electric power construction,” and why this matters for the near-term macro outlook.
• Identify why measured GDP can understate AI’s true investment footprint due to accounting/measurement challenges around vertically integrated infrastructure and own-account investment.
• Compare the paper’s scenario framework (baseline and alternatives) and articulate how different AI adoption paths change outcomes for GDP, inflation, jobs, and financial markets.
• Assess how AI-related investment can pressure economy-wide input costs-including energy and construction-related costs-creating potential headwinds for non-AI sectors in downside scenarios.
• Translate these scenario-based macro outcomes into implications for business planning (capital allocation, cost of capital, and risk management) for firms exposed to large-scale infrastructure buildouts.

SCHEDULE

4:30 – 5:00 p.m. Check-in & Networking

5:00 – 5:30 p.m. Hors d’oeuvres and Cocktails

5:30 – 6:30 p.m. Program | 1 CPE in Information Technology

STRATEGIC INVESTORS

USI

Whitley Penn

Moody’s

REGISTRATION

Registration deadline | Friday 4/3/26

Open to FEI Dallas members and non-members with financial or executive roles in the energy sector.