Artificial intelligence is no longer a technology-sector story.

The race to build the computing capacity behind AI is reshaping American investment, trade, credit markets, electricity demand, construction and, increasingly, the prices consumers pay for technology.

The change is being driven by an extraordinary burst of spending on data centres, advanced chips, networking equipment and power systems.

Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta are committing hundreds of billions of dollars each year to expand AI infrastructure, while Oracle, chipmakers, cloud providers, utilities, construction companies and private-credit firms are being drawn into the same investment cycle.

The four largest US technology groups have spent more than $1.1 trillion on capital expenditure since the AI boom began in 2023. Their combined spending is expected to approach three-quarters of a trillion dollars in 2026 alone.

Amazon has raised its own annual investment plan to $220 billion, largely to meet demand for cloud computing and AI services.

That spending is now large enough to influence national economic data.

Investment in computers, software and data-centre equipment has become an important source of US growth at a time when consumer spending has been less reliable.

Estimates differ, but AI-related investment has accounted for a substantial share of recent expansion in private investment and gross domestic product.

The benefit is spreading well beyond Silicon Valley.

Data-centre construction is creating demand for land, concrete, electrical equipment, cooling systems, fibre networks, generators and skilled labour.

Utilities are planning for large new loads of electricity.

Equipment makers and engineering companies are reporting stronger orders as cloud providers race to secure capacity.

But the boom is also making the American economy more dependent on a narrow set of companies and supply chains.

Much of the hardware needed for AI is imported, particularly from East Asia, where semiconductor manufacturing and advanced electronics are concentrated.

Federal Reserve research estimates that roughly 90% of equipment used by high-technology sectors is sourced abroad.

That import dependence has consequences.

A sustained AI buildout can widen the US current-account deficit because demand for foreign chips and equipment rises faster than exports.

It can also add to inflationary pressure if the price of semiconductors, memory chips and specialised computing equipment increases.

Computer and chip prices, which fell for decades, have begun rising again in parts of the supply chain.

Consumers may feel that effect even if they never use an AI chatbot.

The same memory chips, processors and manufacturing capacity required for AI servers are also used in smartphones, laptops and other electronics.

Apple has largely avoided the most expensive data-centre spending by its rivals, but rising component costs and supply constraints can still affect the price and availability of iPhones and other consumer devices.

That does not mean every price increase is caused by AI, but the infrastructure race is adding pressure to shared technology supply chains.

The financing model is changing as well.

The biggest technology groups still generate vast cash flows, yet the scale of the buildout has encouraged greater use of corporate bonds, private credit, long-term leasing and special-purpose financing vehicles.

Some arrangements allow infrastructure investors to buy chips or build data centres, then lease the capacity to AI companies.

That expands the pool of available capital, but also shifts more risk into credit markets if demand or pricing assumptions prove too optimistic.

The stock market is another channel.

Enthusiasm for AI has added trillions of dollars to the value of technology companies and increased household wealth for investors who own those shares.

That wealth can support consumer spending.

The reverse is also true: if expectations for AI revenue fall sharply, a correction in highly valued technology shares could affect confidence, investment and spending more broadly.

The core uncertainty is whether the vast infrastructure buildout will produce productivity gains and profitable services quickly enough to justify its cost.

Cloud revenue is growing strongly for several of the largest providers, and demand for computing capacity remains high.

Yet many AI products are still searching for durable business models, while the expense of chips, power and data centres is being committed years before the final returns are known.

For now, artificial intelligence is acting as an economic stimulus as much as a software revolution.

It is lifting investment and industrial demand, while exposing the United States to higher import costs, greater financial concentration and a larger bet that the next generation of computing will pay for the infrastructure now being built.

Indonesia set out to give free nutritious meals to almost every schoolchild in the country.

Instead, President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship programme has been shaken by food-poisoning outbreaks, corruption allegations, budget reductions and a court ruling limiting how it can be funded.

The Free Nutritious Meals programme began in January 2025 with a broad social purpose: reduce malnutrition and stunting, support pregnant women and improve children’s readiness to learn.

The intended scale was enormous.

By the end of 2026, the government had hoped to reach about 83 million recipients, including pupils and expectant mothers, or close to a third of Indonesia’s population.

The ambition created a logistical challenge on a national scale.

Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, with large differences in transport, sanitation, kitchen capacity and local government capability.

Delivering safe food every school day requires reliable suppliers, refrigeration, trained staff, clean water, testing and clear accountability.

The programme expanded faster than many of those safeguards could be put in place.

Food safety became the clearest warning sign.

Research assessing the first year of the programme linked 177 food-poisoning outbreaks to school meals by the end of 2025, affecting more than 20,000 children across 33 provinces.

Reported symptoms included nausea, stomach pain and vomiting, while laboratory investigations in some cases identified bacteria including E. coli, Salmonella and Staphylococcus.

The problem was not simply one bad meal or one kitchen.

Public-health researchers found major weaknesses in the operating system: too few kitchens had hygiene certification, cooked food was sometimes left at room temperature for seven or eight hours before being eaten, and many facilities lacked cold storage, sterilisation equipment and effective health monitoring.

Local health offices were often not fully integrated into detecting and responding to outbreaks.

The programme’s governing structure has also come under criminal scrutiny.

In June, investigators arrested the former head of the National Nutrition Agency, Dadan Hindayana, and two other senior officials on corruption allegations connected to the approval of foundations involved in meal distribution.

The allegations have not been proven in court, but the arrests intensified concerns that a programme designed for public nutrition had become vulnerable to politically connected contractors and weak controls.

The government has responded by reducing the programme’s reach and budget, suspending or closing kitchens that fail operational standards and pausing distribution during school holidays.

The 2026 allocation was initially set at 335 trillion rupiah, then reduced to 268 trillion rupiah and later to about 229 trillion rupiah, or roughly $16.5 billion.

Officials have said the emphasis must shift from rapid expansion to food quality and safety.

The retrenchment carries its own political and social cost.

Before the latest review, the programme said it had reached more than 62 million people.

Reducing the number of recipients may ease pressure on kitchens and public finances, but it also means fewer children and families receive a benefit that was presented as a national priority.

A constitutional court ruling has created another constraint.

The court said the government cannot use the education budget to finance the meal scheme beyond the permitted transition period, arguing that constitutionally protected education spending must remain available for teachers, schools, scholarships and core learning needs.

That ruling does not end the programme, but it forces the government to find a more sustainable funding structure.

The central failure was not the idea of feeding children at school.

School-meal programmes can improve nutrition, attendance and household finances when they are properly designed.

Indonesia’s experience shows the risk of treating a public-health system as a political rollout: scale can be announced quickly, but safe kitchens, independent inspection, transparent procurement and local capacity take longer to build.

The government is now trying to preserve the programme by making it smaller, safer and more tightly controlled.

Its next test is whether it can rebuild trust among parents and schools while proving that a meal intended to improve a child’s health will not put that child at risk.

The United States and Japan have carried out a rare joint intervention to support the yen after the Japanese currency fell to its weakest level against the dollar in about four decades.

The action is significant because it marks Washington’s first direct coordinated support for the yen since the aftermath of Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

It also signals that the two governments view the yen’s decline not simply as a Japanese problem, but as a potential source of wider financial-market instability.

Japan’s finance ministry confirmed that the joint action on Friday was aimed at countering excessive volatility and disorderly movements in the yen.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States supported Japan’s efforts to correct what he described as substantial undervaluation of the currency, and both sides left open the possibility of further intervention.

The yen had weakened to almost 164 to the dollar last month, its lowest level since 1986. It strengthened sharply after Japanese and American action, briefly moving into the mid-150s against the dollar, before giving back part of that gain.

The response showed that intervention can move markets quickly, but it did not settle the deeper forces pushing the yen lower.

Japan appears to have acted first.

Bank of Japan account data indicated that Tokyo may have sold roughly $59 billion to buy yen in the New York market on Thursday.

The exact scale of the United States’ operation has not been officially disclosed.

A photograph of notes in front of Bessent during a cabinet meeting referred to buying between $5 billion and $10 billion in yen, but that image did not establish the final amount traded.

The US operation was also unusual in its mechanics.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reportedly sold euros to buy yen on behalf of the Treasury, rather than selling dollars.

The approach allowed Washington to support the Japanese currency while limiting a direct effect on the dollar market.

The concern extends beyond foreign exchange.

Japan is one of the largest foreign holders of US government debt.

If Tokyo has to sell large quantities of US Treasury securities to obtain dollars for repeated yen interventions, that could add pressure to American borrowing costs at a time when Washington is already managing large financing needs.

Japan has indicated that it may instead use the Federal Reserve’s Foreign and International Monetary Authorities Repo Facility.

That mechanism allows foreign authorities to obtain dollars temporarily by pledging US Treasury securities as collateral, reducing the need for outright sales of those bonds during market stress.

The yen’s weakness reflects a large gap between Japanese and American interest rates.

The Bank of Japan raised its main policy rate to 1% in June, its highest level since 1995, but the Federal Reserve’s benchmark range remains between 3.5% and 3.75%.

Higher returns available in dollar assets have encouraged investors to sell yen and buy dollars.

A weak yen creates conflicting effects for Japan.

It can improve the overseas earnings of exporters, but it also raises the domestic price of imported fuel, food and raw materials.

That is particularly painful for a country heavily dependent on imported energy, especially while higher oil prices are feeding through to household and business costs.

Currency intervention can deter speculative selling and reduce abrupt market moves, particularly when two governments act together.

It cannot permanently reverse the interest-rate gap, Japan’s import dependence or investor concerns about the country’s economic outlook.

The next test will be whether the Bank of Japan, the Treasury and Tokyo’s finance ministry can maintain confidence without needing increasingly large interventions.