Data centers aren’t crowding out investment

Simple accounting and real‑dollar charts show that rising data‑center and tech investment has coincided with continued (if slower) growth in other investment; the standard loanable‑funds model implies private borrowing crowds out less than one‑for‑one and can reallocate funds towards higher‑value uses. Tabarrok also points out that much of the rise in real interest rates predates the AI/datatacenter boom, weakening the causal story that datacenter borrowing pushed up rates and choked off other projects. — This reframes a popular policy narrative — that AI/data‑center buildouts are starving other investment — with empirical checks that affect subsidy debates, permitting fights, and macro policy responses.