全球资本支出：即将到来的投资周期

Supersize me: The cominginvestment cycle Rising capital expenditure on AI, energy infrastructure anddefense, combined with the need to improve supply-chainresilience, could spur a new investment cycle in advanced economies.Aftertwo decades of subdued investment ratios,the outlook for a return to higher investment looks promising. Advanced economies' investment as a share of GDP has been shrinking in the past decades,reaching 22% last year. However,shiftsalready underway could now launch a revival in •Breakthroughs in AI have triggered an enormous capex wave by the hyperscalers, andcompanies outside of tech will also need to invest to incorporate AI in their workflows. AI-sensitive components could contribute 2.8pp to 2026 annual average investment1growth inthe US, while the tailwind is likely to be smaller in Europe. •The AI buildup will also increase energy needs. Separately, the Ukraine and Iran wars havehighlighted the urgency for Europe to invest in its energy infrastructure. Our analysis showsenergy-related investment could add 0.3-0.7pp to overall investment growth in 2026 in the US •The geopolitical events also emphasize the need to boost defense investment, and NATOcountries have committed to a substantial increase in military and related spending to 5% of GDP. We estimate defense could contribute another 0.3pp to investment growth in the US and •Combined with a normalization in investment in other sectors, these drivers couldliftannualaverage investment growth in 2026 above 6% in the US and to 4.5-5% in the euro area and the UK. Moreover, by the end of the decade, investment-to-GDP ratios could reach or exceed the Signals for more investment in advanced economies Global investment as a share of GDP fell in theaftermathof COVID, but had been on an upwardtrend in the prior two decades: following the low of 23% rightafterthe Dotcom bubble in 2002, it rose to a peak of 27% in 2022, interrupted only by the GFC in 2008-09. However, the rise in the global investment ratio was driven almost exclusively by China.Afterjoining the WTO, China grew its already high investment share of 36% of GDP in 2002 to a peak of 47% in 2011. Evenaftersome moderation since 2015, when China aimed atshiftingits growthmodel toward more consumption, its investment ratio remained around 42%, beforemoderating furtherafterthe housing crisis erupted in 2022 to “just” 38% today. In contrast, advanced economies’ investment levels as a percentage of GDP have trended lowerin the past decades: from 24-26% until the burst of the Dotcom bubble, to 23-24% just ahead of the GFC, and to below 20% during the GFC. From 2010 onward, investment gradually rose backto 23% of GDP in 2022. Last year, it was just 22% of GDP again.However, someshiftsare underway that could change this. The enthusiasm about AI as a revolutionary technological breakthrough has triggered a massive capex cycle in the techindustry. Ongoing large investments in data centers are being accompanied by the need to provide them with energy. This, in turn, is boosting capex plans for power generation andtransmission capacity, ie, electricity grids. Although thus far mainly concentrated in the US anddriven by the hyperscalers(Microsoft,Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle), AI-related investmentswill likely spread to other regions as AIdiffusesthrough economies to become a general allies' new commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP on core defense, plus another 1.5% on defense- related infrastructure, implies a significant increase in public investment by 2035. The COVID pandemic dramatically highlighted not only companies' but also entire countries' exposure to a few providers of essential inputs,oftenproduced in a single location inChina. Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing conflict in the Gulf region have furtherhighlighted the risks of such concentrated reliance in the area of energy and commodities. Aseconomies need to emphasize robustness overefficiency,they must broaden their supplychains, build redundancies and create storage. Thisshiftfrom “just-in-time” to “just-in-case” Could the combination of these factors usher in a return to investment ratios of 25-26% GDP inadvanced economies – levels last seen in the 1990s?Aftertwo decades of low investment and,in many cases, under-investment, the signs point in that direction. FIGURE 1. Advanced economies' investment to GDP ratio has been lowin recent decades... FIGURE 2. ...while China's high investment ratio has boosted theglobal investment in aggregate Source: IMF, Haver Analytics, Barclays Research Investment cycles in history and theory 150 years of data: Investment is volatile, but it does come in cycles We begin with a long-run perspective on investment cycles, shown in Figure 3 for the US and Figure 4 for the UK, using data extending back to the 19th century. To construct these historicalseries, we combine modern national accounts from the BEA (starting in 1929) and the ONS (from 1948) with earli