Europe’s Stagnating Economy Falls Further Behind the U.S.

Europe’s economy stagnated in the final three months of last year, expanding a divide between a booming U.S. economy and a European continent that is increasingly left behind.

The fresh economic data showed higher borrowing costs had compounded the earlier impact of higher energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

By contrast, the U.S. economy has been expanding robustly and enjoyed its strongest performance relative to the eurozone since 2013—with the exception of the Covid-19 pandemic.

One factor that is threatening to weigh further on the European economy is its proximity to geopolitical flashpoints. Russia’s war on Ukraine sent energy prices rocketing in 2022, hitting European manufacturers. The U.S., as an energy producer, was comparatively unaffected, and its natural-gas industry even benefited when it became Europe’s energy supplier of last resort after Russia throttled gas deliveries to the region.

Now the crisis in the Middle East, which has gummed up cargo traffic through the Red Sea, is adding costs to European importers and disrupting European supply chains. There too, the U.S. hasn’t suffered as much since it has alternative routes for goods coming from Asia.

Europe’s Stoxx 600 index rose 12.64% last year, a little over half the performance of the S&P 500, which rose 24.23% over the same period.

The European Union’s statistics agency Tuesday said gross domestic product in the eurozone was unchanged in the final three months of last year. That followed a decline in the three months through September. During 2023 as a whole, Eurostat recorded growth of just 0.5%, while the U.S. economy expanded by 2.5%.

Still, the divergence between the giant economic blocs is more a story of surprising U.S. strength than unanticipated weakness in the eurozone. The U.S. grew much faster than economists had expected it would at the start of 2023, while the eurozone was about as badly hit by high energy prices and rising interest rates as had been expected. Economists forecast the growth gap will narrow somewhat in the course of the year.

Europe’s policymakers don’t expect the stagnation in output to extend deep into 2024. Instead, they see a pickup in activity as wages rise faster than prices, reversing the declines in real incomes that followed the war in Ukraine and a rise in energy and food bills.

“We have the conditions for recovery that are coming into place,” said European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde Thursday. “I’m not suggesting that it’s going to pick up radically, but it’s coming into place from what we see.”

Helping Europe is the fact that energy prices are falling from post-invasion highs faster than policymakers had expected. That should help boost household spending on other goods and services and lower costs for Europe’s hard-pressed factories.

With inflation easing, the ECB is expected to lower its key interest rate later this year, which would also jolt growth by easing the pressure on household spending and business investment.

Yet the eurozone faces fresh threats too, mainly from the conflict that began with the attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7. Disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea have pushed freight costs sharply higher and led to delays for European manufacturers that rely on Asian suppliers for parts. A further escalation of the conflict could reverse the decline in energy costs and stall the anticipated recovery.

The International Monetary Fund now expects the eurozone to grow by 0.9% this year, a downgrade from its previous 1.2% growth estimate, according to the Fund’s quarterly World Economic Outlook report published on Tuesday. By contrast, it sees the U.S. growing by 2.1% against its earlier 1.5% forecast.

Strong U.S. growth and an estimated 4.6% increase in China’s GDP according to the IMF should more than offset Europe’s disappointing performance and translate into a soft landing for the world economy this year. The IMF now sees the world economy growing at 3.1% this year, the same rate as last year and faster than the 2.9% growth projected in October.

“We find that the global economy continues to display remarkable resilience,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, IMF Chief Economist, told reporters, pointing to the speed at which inflation had receded as a positive surprise.

He warned, however, that geopolitical distortions could reignite price increases. Core inflation—which excludes volatile energy and food prices—isn’t quite back to the pre pandemic trend, particularly for services sector prices, he said.

IMF economists also cautioned that financial markets have been overly optimistic in anticipating early rate cuts by central banks. They project policy interest rates to remain at current levels for the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England until the second half of 2024, before gradually declining as inflation moves closer to targets. Some investors and analysts expect a Federal Reserve rate cut in the first half of this year.

Back in Europe, Tuesday’s GDP data showed Germany was the weakest of Europe’s large economies at the end of last year, with output falling in the final quarter. However, revised figures showed it avoided a contraction in the three months through September.

“The economy remains stuck in the twilight zone between recession and stagnation,” said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Bank.

While Italy’s economy expanded slightly, the French economy flatlined for the second straight quarter. Ireland, which had been a major source of growth for the eurozone over the previous decade, saw its GDP fall by 1.9% in 2023 as a pandemic-driven boom in its key pharmaceutical industry ended.

In a rare bright spot, Spain finished the year with another strong quarter and matched the U.S. growth rate over 2023 as a whole, thanks to a surge in international tourism as the last of the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.

A sharp technology sell-off has exposed a new anxiety on global markets: whether the enormous borrowing behind the artificial-intelligence infrastructure boom can generate sufficient returns as interest rates rise and Chinese competition intensifies.

The artificial-intelligence investment boom has powered technology shares, semiconductor manufacturers and data-centre operators to extraordinary heights. Last week, investors were given a reminder that much of this expansion is being built with borrowed money.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 4.5 per cent over the week ended October 16, its weakest performance since late June. Semiconductor shares suffered an even deeper correction, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index losing about 11.4 per cent.

The selling spread quickly through global markets. Micron Technology fell 14.6 per cent over the week, while South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dropped approximately 18 per cent and 24 per cent respectively.

This was more than a routine bout of profit-taking. Investors were reassessing three interconnected risks: higher interest rates, the rapidly expanding debt burden attached to AI infrastructure and the prospect of stronger competition from Chinese memory-chip manufacturers.

The debt behind the AI build-out

Artificial intelligence requires a physical infrastructure network of enormous scale. Data centres must be built, advanced processors purchased, power supplies secured and cooling systems installed before customers begin generating meaningful revenue from them.

Technology companies are increasingly supplementing their own cash with corporate bonds, syndicated loans, equipment leases, private credit and project-level financing.

JPMorgan describes the emerging funding model as a combination of conventional corporate borrowing and project finance tied to individual data-centre assets. In Australia, the Reserve Bank estimates that syndicated loans accounted for approximately three-quarters of data-centre financing during 2025 and 2026 to date.

The numbers are becoming large enough to affect broader credit markets. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has cited Wall Street estimates suggesting AI-related investment-grade bond issuance could approach US$300 billion in 2026 alone.

That borrowing is not automatically problematic. Debt can be an efficient way to finance long-lived infrastructure when future revenue is sufficiently predictable. The concern is that AI technology, customer demand and computing economics are changing much faster than the repayment schedules attached to the assets.

A data centre financed today may carry debt for years. Investors must therefore make assumptions about future utilisation rates, electricity prices, chip performance, customer concentration and the amount businesses will ultimately pay for AI computing.

When interest rates rise, those assumptions become less forgiving.

Inflation changes the calculation

September’s US inflation data intensified the pressure. Consumer prices increased 3.7 per cent over the year, ahead of market expectations and up from 3.4 per cent in August.

The hotter reading reduced confidence that interest rates would fall quickly and pushed bond yields higher. That matters particularly for companies whose valuations depend on profits expected well into the future, as well as highly leveraged infrastructure operators that may need to refinance.

CoreWeave has emerged as a closely watched test case. The specialist cloud-computing company has accumulated substantial debt and lease obligations to build AI capacity, while relying on a concentrated group of large technology customers.

Its shares fell sharply during the sell-off, while the cost of insuring its debt against default climbed. CoreWeave has argued that its contracted backlog more than covers its obligations and that financial markets do not always understand its business model. Nevertheless, its securities have become a proxy for investor confidence in debt-funded AI infrastructure.

Oracle, another major investor in AI computing capacity, fell 8.8 per cent in Friday trading, while CoreWeave dropped 15.5 per cent.

The question is shifting from how much AI infrastructure can be built to how profitably it can be operated.

China adds another source of pressure

Interest rates were not the only catalyst. Reports of advances by Chinese memory-chip producer ChangXin Memory Technologies raised concerns that lower-cost Chinese products could increase competition across the global semiconductor industry.

Memory chips are essential to AI systems, but the industry is historically cyclical. Periods of tight supply and high pricing can encourage rapid investment, eventually producing oversupply and falling margins.

The prospect of a well-funded Chinese competitor expanding its technological capabilities unsettled investors in Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. It also demonstrated that AI-related demand does not insulate chipmakers from conventional competitive pressures.

That combination—slower rate cuts, more expensive financing and potentially cheaper supply—challenged the assumption that every company exposed to AI would enjoy continually expanding margins.

A reset rather than the end of the boom

The sell-off does not establish that the AI boom is ending. Demand for computing power remains strong, the largest technology companies continue to generate formidable cash flows and many infrastructure projects are backed by long-term customer contracts.

What has changed is the market’s willingness to overlook the price and financing structure of that growth.

The most resilient companies are likely to be those able to fund investment from operating cash flow, secure long-duration customers and demonstrate that new capacity will earn returns comfortably above its financing costs.

More speculative operators may face greater scrutiny, particularly where debt is expensive, customers are concentrated or expected revenue depends on demand that has not yet materialised.

For Australian investors, the lesson extends beyond US technology shares. Local data-centre operators, infrastructure funds, electricity suppliers and property groups are increasingly exposed to the same investment cycle.

Artificial intelligence may remain one of the defining growth themes of the decade. But last week’s correction showed that enthusiasm for the technology does not eliminate financial discipline.

The next stage of the AI boom will be judged not only by computing power, model performance or demand for chips, but by something more traditional: whether the assets being financed can generate enough cash to repay the money borrowed to build them.

Fact box

Nasdaq Composite: Down 4.5 per cent for the week ended October 16, 2026

Philadelphia Semiconductor Index: Down approximately 11.4 per cent

Micron Technology: Down approximately 14.6 per cent

Samsung Electronics: Down approximately 18 per cent

SK Hynix: Down approximately 24 per cent

US September inflation: 3.7 per cent annually

Estimated 2026 AI-related investment-grade issuance: Approximately US$300 billion