IMF Chief Says AI Spending Is Holding World Growth Near 3 Percent
IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva told the Bangkok meetings that AI infrastructure spending is keeping global growth near 3 percent despite the energy shock, while IMF research finds about 40 percent of jobs will be changed by the technology.
Key points
- BANGKOK: Spending on artificial intelligence is holding the world economy up.
- She called the AI buildout a demand shock and an investment shock.
- The IMF forecast global growth of 3 percent for 2026 in July.
BANGKOK: Spending on artificial intelligence is holding the world economy up. That was the message from the head of the International Monetary Fund as the IMF and World Bank opened their annual meetings in Bangkok on Monday, October 12. Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said AI infrastructure investment is keeping global growth at around 3 percent, even as an energy supply shock drags on output.
She called the AI buildout a demand shock and an investment shock. Companies are ordering data centers, chips and servers at a pace that creates work now, long before anyone can measure what AI does to productivity later. Georgieva said the effect is strongest in Asia, where much of the hardware is made. She estimated the boost at 0.5 to 1.0 percentage point of growth for advanced Asian economies, and 0.2 to 0.8 percentage point for emerging Asian economies. Thailand, the host country, is among the suppliers gaining from the orders.
The IMF forecast global growth of 3 percent for 2026 in July. It releases an updated outlook on Tuesday, October 13.
The other side of the boom
Georgieva also named the cost. She described AI as a slow moving tsunami for jobs, and said IMF research finds about 40 percent of jobs worldwide will be augmented, downgraded or eliminated by the technology over time. In advanced economies the share rises to as high as 60 percent. One study she cited found that 10 percent of jobs in the United States already require AI skills. Routine and repetitive jobs are shrinking, she said, while lower paying work grows in construction and in the data centers themselves.
The shift reaches past employment. If work moves from labor toward capital, governments collect revenue in different places, and education systems train people for jobs that are changing while they study. Georgieva put jobs, growth, education and taxation on the same list of things AI will reshape.
World Bank President Ajay Banga struck a different note on the same stage. He said developing economies should focus on small AI tools for farming, healthcare and education, and he was not convinced that entry level jobs would vanish across the board.
Who is in the room
About 18,000 people are expected at the week of meetings, with finance officials from the IMF's 191 member countries. Some ministers are staying home. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Spain's finance minister are among those reported to be skipping the trip to handle domestic priorities.
Why it matters
The two messages from Bangkok describe the same economy that markets are trading this week. AI spending is strong enough to offset an energy shock in the growth numbers. It is also concentrated enough to rattle whole stock markets when a rival makes progress, as the chip selloff in Seoul showed on the same day. Growth held up by one industry is still growth. It is not the same as growth spread wide, and the IMF knows it.
What happens next
The updated IMF outlook lands on Tuesday and will put a number on Georgieva's remarks. Meetings run through the week in Bangkok. Finance ministers will argue over the jobs numbers in public, and over energy costs behind closed doors.