Really nice report. Follow up: why has the fall in AI prices been so fast?
When you plot the price decline against cumulative R&D investment rather than time, you get the elasticity of price declines to R&D investment. By this margin, AI is not unusual – its price elasticity to R&D investment is squarely in the middle of Epoch's considered technologies.
So the AI price fall is historically unprecedented because we've dumped money into AI R&D at a historically unprecedented rate – and that R&D has paid off at a very average rate.
Goldman: We estimate a drag from hyperscaler depreciation expenses on S&P 500 earnings growth of 5pp in 2027, offsetting nearly half of the 11pp boost to earnings from capex spending.
By 2028, the drag from depreciation should offset the S&P 500 earnings uplift from continued capex spending.