The AI Boom Is Bigger Than the Railroads. What Could It Mean for Your Favourite Shows?

A new study puts record AI spending in perspective, and the screen industry is watching

Behind the scenes of TV, a lot of money is being poured into AI. How much? More than the railroads, the motorways or the fibre-optic cables that brought us streaming.

A Brookings Institution study by Columbia University economist Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh projects $10.3 trillion of AI-related investment between 2025 and 2032, averaging roughly 3.63% of US GDP a year. For comparison, railroads peaked at 2.24%, highways at 1.13%, and telecom and fibre at 1.1%.

A quick caveat: that figure is a modelled estimate of investment, not a tally of money already spent. It also covers US spending on data centres, power systems, networks and specialised chips, not TV-specific budgets.

Why it matters for TV

Every big wave of infrastructure has changed how stories reach us. Electricity gave us cinema, and fibre gave us streaming. If AI follows the pattern, the shows we watch and how they're made could change too.

The hopeful side is that tools which once needed a big studio budget, such as effects, animation and editing, may come within reach of small independent teams.

That could be good news for LGBTQ+ and other under-served stories that struggle to get commissioned, and cheaper translation could carry more shows across borders to new fans. These are plausible outcomes rather than findings of the study.

The questions that come with it

The study's own focus is on risk. It warns that funding is shifting from transparent corporate balance sheets to opaque structures such as private credit and special-purpose vehicles.

And Van Nieuwerburgh argues AI infrastructure spending has become the single biggest driver of US economic growth. That makes it hard to separate the industry's fortunes from this bet.

For the people who make TV, the questions are more personal. What happens to writers, actors, editors and crew as production gets automated? Who gets paid when AI learns from existing creative work? And will viewers be told when AI helped make what they're watching?

The bottom line

The money is flowing, and it's likely to reach our screens in some form. Whether that means more diverse, more affordable storytelling or fewer jobs for the people behind it is still being decided.

The study doesn't say who will benefit, only how much is being spent. For viewers, writers and fans, that part of the story is still being written.

Chart data: Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, "Financing the AI Buildout," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.