Boost for World Economy as U.S., Eurozone Accelerate in Tandem
Surveys point to a fresh acceleration in the U.S., even as growth in the eurozone strengthens
Surveys point to a fresh acceleration in the U.S., even as growth in the eurozone strengthens
Global economic growth is becoming more broad based, with surveys indicating that business activity in both the U.S. and the eurozone gained momentum in May.
The eurozone economy contracted in the second half of 2023 following a surge in energy and food prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent rise in interest rates intended to tame that inflation.
By contrast, the U.S. economy expanded strongly over the same period, opening up an unusually wide growth gap with the eurozone. That gap narrowed as the eurozone returned to growth in the first three months of the year, while the U.S. slowed.
However, surveys released Thursday point to a fresh acceleration in the U.S., even as growth in the eurozone strengthened. That bodes well for a global economy that relied heavily on the U.S. for its dynamism in 2023.
The S&P Global Flash U.S. Composite PMI —which gauges activity in the manufacturing and services sectors—rose to 54.4 in May from 51.3 in April, marking a 25-month high and the first time since the beginning of the year that the index hasn’t slowed. A level over 50 indicates expansion in private-sector activity.
“The data put the U.S. economy back on course for another solid gross domestic product gain in the second quarter,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Eurozone business activity in turn increased for the third straight month in May, and at the fastest pace in a year, the surveys suggest. The currency area’s joint composite PMI rose to 52.3 from 51.7.
The uptick was led by powerhouse economy Germany, where continued strength in services and improvement in industry drove activity to its highest level in a year. That helped the manufacturing sector in the bloc as a whole grow closer to recovery, reaching a 15-month peak.
By contrast, surveys of purchasing managers pointed to a slowdown in the U.K. economy following a stronger-than-expected start to the year that saw it outpace the U.S. The survey was released a day after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a surprise election for early July, banking on signs of an improved economic outlook to turn around a large deficit in the opinion polls.
Similar surveys pointed to a further acceleration in India’s rapidly-expanding economy, and to a rebound in Japan, where the economy contracted in the first three months of the year. In Australia, the surveys pointed to a slight slowdown in growth during May.
Businesses reported that they were raising their prices at the slowest pace since November, which should reassure the European Central Bank. However, the eurozone continued to add jobs in May, suggesting that wages might not cool as rapidly as the ECB had hoped.
The ECB released figures Thursday that showed wages negotiated by labor unions in the eurozone were 4.7% higher in the first quarter than a year earlier, a faster increase than the 4.5% recorded in the final three months of 2023
The ECB has signalled it will lower its key interest rate in early June, while the Fed is waiting for evidence that a slowdown in inflation will resume after setbacks this year.
Nevertheless, eurozone businesses and households shouldn’t bank on successive cuts to borrowing costs, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos said. “There is a huge degree of uncertainty,” he said. “We have made no decisions on the number of interest rate cuts or on their size,” he said in an interview published Thursday. “We will see how economic data evolve.”
Continued resilience in the eurozone economy would likely make the ECB more cautious about lowering borrowing costs after its first move, economist Franziska Palmas at Capital Economics wrote in a note. “If the economy continues to hold up well, cuts further ahead may be slower than we had anticipated,” she said.
– Edward Frankl contributed to this story.
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Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta pour billions into artificial intelligence, undeterred by DeepSeek’s rise
Tech giants projected tens of billions of dollars in increased investment this year and sent a stark message about their plans for AI: We’re just getting started.
The four biggest spenders on the data centers that power artificial-intelligence systems all said in recent days that they would jack up investments further in 2025 after record outlays last year. Microsoft , Google and Meta Platforms have projected combined capital expenditures of at least $215 billion for their current fiscal years, an annual increase of more than 45%.
Amazon.com didn’t provide a full-year estimate but indicated on Thursday that total capex across its businesses is on course to grow to more than $100 billion, and said most of the increase will be for AI.
Their comments in recent quarterly earnings reports showed the AI arms race is still gaining momentum despite investor anxiety over the impact of China’s DeepSeek and whether these big U.S. companies will sufficiently profit from their unprecedented spending spree.
Investors have been especially shaken that DeepSeek replicated much of the capability of leading American AI systems despite spending less money and using fewer and less-powerful chips, according to its Chinese developer. Leaders of the U.S. companies were unbowed , touting advances in their own technology and arguing that lower costs will make AI more affordable and grow the demand for their cloud computing services, which AI needs to operate.
“We think virtually every application that we know of today is going to be reinvented with AI inside of it,” Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy said on Thursday’s earnings call.
Here is a breakdown of each company’s plans:
Amazon said a measure of its capex that includes leased equipment rose to a record of about $26 billion in the final quarter of 2024 , driven by spending in its cloud-computing division on equipment for data centers that host AI applications. Executives projected it would maintain the fourth-quarter spending volume in 2025, meaning an annual total of more than $100 billion by that measure.
The company—which gets most of its revenue from e-commerce and most of its profit from cloud computing—also projected overall sales for the current quarter that missed analysts’ expectations. Its shares slid about 4% in after-hours trading Thursday. The stock rose more than 40% in 2024 and was up nearly 9% this year before its earnings report.
Jassy said AI has the potential to propel historic change and that Amazon wants to be a leader of that progress.
“AI represents for sure the biggest opportunity since cloud and probably the biggest technology shift and opportunity in business since the internet,” Jassy said.
Google shares are down about 7% since its earnings report Tuesday, which showed disappointing growth in its cloud-computing business. Still, parent-company Alphabet said it is accelerating investments in AI data centers as part of a surge in capital expenditures this year to about $75 billion, from $52.5 billion in 2024. The spending will go to infrastructure both for Google’s own use and for cloud-computing clients.
“I think part of the reason we are so excited about the AI opportunity is we know we can drive extraordinary use cases because the cost of actually using it is going to keep coming down,” said CEO Sundar Pichai .
AI is “as big as it comes, and that’s why you’re seeing us invest to meet that moment,” he said.
Microsoft has said it plans to spend $80 billion on AI data centers in the fiscal year ending in June, and that spending would grow further next year , albeit at a slower pace.
Chief Executive Satya Nadella said AI will become much more extensively used , which he said is good news. “As AI becomes more efficient and accessible, we will see exponentially more demand,” Nadella said.
Growth for Microsoft’s cloud-computing business in the latest quarter also disappointed investors, leaving its stock down about 6% since its earnings report last week.
Meta, too, outlined a sizable increase in its investments driven by AI, including $60 billion to $65 billion in planned capital expenditures this year, roughly 70% higher than analysts had projected. Shares in Meta are up about 5% since its earnings report last week.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said investing vast sums will enable it to adjust the technology as AI advances.
“That’s generally an advantage that we’re now going to be able to provide a higher quality of service than others who don’t necessarily have the business model to support it on a sustainable basis,” he said.
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