The White House's top economic adviser points to private capital, a $10.3 trillion investment projection and possible 4% GDP growth
Kevin Hassett wants you to stop worrying about the AI money. The director of the White House National Economic Council said the artificial intelligence sector has plenty of funding and does not resemble a financial crisis.
Hassett made the case before the Economic Club of New York on September 28, 2026. His argument: AI is propped up by strong private-sector investment, which separates it from industries that tend to buckle when the economy turns.
The numbers behind the optimism
Hassett did not stop at calling AI well-funded. He paired it with a growth forecast that sits well above the consensus.
He projected that US GDP could grow about 4% if no external shocks hit. That beats the administration’s own 3% target, and it roughly doubles private-sector forecasts of around 2%.
The engine behind that forecast is capital spending. Hassett pointed to heavy expected investment in AI-linked infrastructure, including data centers and semiconductors.
The headline figure is large. AI-related investment in the US is projected to total $10.3 trillion from 2025 to 2032, according to research Hassett cited from Columbia University professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh.
Spread across those years, that works out to an average of 3.63% of GDP annually. Put simply, a meaningful slice of national output would be poured into chips, servers and the buildings that house them, year after year.
Hassett also made a claim about what happens inside companies that adopt the technology. He said AI-adopting firms see substantial increases in sales, employment and wages, driven by higher worker productivity.
A debt problem, and a proposed fix
The speech also had a fiscal angle. The US national debt now exceeds $40 trillion, and Hassett suggested AI could help with that.
His reasoning runs through productivity. If AI adoption makes the economy more productive, growth picks up, and a larger economy has an easier time carrying its debt load.
Hassett also addressed the risks that come with AI. He called them
completely solvable problems
He argued those problems are best handled by the private sector rather than by government. To back that up, he referenced proposals from leadership at AI companies, including Anthropic.
What this means
For investors, the clearest signal is the scale of projected infrastructure spending. A $10.3 trillion projection through 2032 points toward sustained demand for data centers, semiconductors and the businesses that supply them.
Policy direction is the second takeaway. Hassett’s preference for private-sector management of AI risks indicates the administration is not leaning toward heavy-handed regulation.
The third point is the gap between forecasts. Hassett’s 4% GDP projection is well above both his own administration’s 3% goal and private estimates near 2%.
Hassett’s claim that AI adopters raise sales, employment and wages is a testable proposition. If firm-level data keeps supporting it, the political case for AI investment gets stronger.
Finally, the reference to Anthropic shows how closely the administration’s thinking is tied to proposals coming from AI developers themselves. Letting the industry shape its own guardrails may speed things up. It also places a lot of trust in the companies with the most at stake.
