Computers Take a Record 8.9% of US Business Investment, and Buildings the Smallest Share Since Records Began
US businesses spent $420 billion a year on computers and peripheral equipment in the second quarter of 2026, 2.4 times what they spent two years earlier and a record 8.9% of all business investment. Structures fell to 19.7%, the smallest share since BEA's records begin in 1947, as factory building dropped 31% from its peak. Business investment is the largest share of GDP since 2000.
Data as published October 21, 2026Sources BEA, OECDNext edition next quarter
Computers set a record. Businesses spent $420 billion a year on computers and peripheral equipment in the second quarter of 2026, against $175 billion in Q2 2024. That is 8.9% of all business investment, the largest share since the series began in 1959, up from 3.9% at the end of 2019.
One family of machines carried the year. Business investment rose $416 billion over the past year. Computers alone made 38% of the rise. Information processing equipment as a whole made 50%.
Buildings fell to the smallest share on record. Structures took 19.7% of business investment, the lowest in BEA's records back to 1947. Factory construction has fallen in each of the 7 quarters since its peak in the third quarter of 2024, down 31%.
Investment is as large a share of the economy as in 2000. Business investment came to 14.5% of GDP, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2000. After the 2000 peak, computer spending fell 28% between Q3 2000 and Q4 2002.
The US mix is the most intangible in the G7. In 2024 the US put 31% of all its fixed investment into intellectual property, more than any other G7 economy and 11 points above the euro area.
What it means
Buyers of computing capacity: a computer ages in years, a building in decades. When the mix tilts this far toward machines, the payback has to arrive inside the hardware's useful life. Price it that way, not on the plan's horizon.
Suppliers to the buildout: 50% of last year's growth in business investment came from one family of equipment. The last time investment took this share of GDP, computer spending fell 28% between Q3 2000 and Q4 2002. Plan for the swing, not the trend.
Builders and equippers of factories: the boom is fading quarter by quarter, though spending still runs more than twice its level at the end of 2019. A plan sized for the Q3 2024 peak needs a version sized for the plateau.
8.9%Computers and peripheral equipment, share of US business investment, Q2 2026. The highest since 1959
38%Computers' part of the $416 billion rise in business investment over the past year
19.7%Structures' share of business investment, the smallest in records back to 1947
31%Share of all US fixed investment going to intellectual property in 2024, the most in the G7
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Part 1 · What happened
1 · The record
Computers now take 8.9% of business investment
In the second quarter of 2026, American businesses were spending $420 billion a year on computers and the equipment plugged into them. Two years earlier the figure was $175 billion.
Exhibit 1
Computers and peripheral equipment took 8.9% of US business investment in Q2 2026, the highest share since 1959
Share of private nonresidential fixed investment, current dollars, seasonally adjusted, quarterly, 1990 to Q2 2026
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, NIPA Table 5.3.5. Stratonomics analysis.
That is 8.9% of every dollar of business investment, the largest share since the Bureau of Economic Analysis began the series in 1959. At the end of 2019 it was 3.9%. Part of that is price: computers cost more than they did at the end of 2019. Strip prices out and the volume is still extraordinary. Businesses now buy almost three times the computing equipment they bought then, and 43% more than a year ago.
Over the past year, business investment rose $416 billion. Computers alone made 38% of that rise. Add the rest of information processing equipment and it is 50%: half the growth in American business investment came from one family of machines.
2 · The retreat
Buildings take the smallest share on record
Structures, from commercial and health care buildings to factories, power and communication structures, mines and wells, took 19.7% of business investment in the second quarter of 2026. That is the smallest share in BEA's quarterly records, which begin in 1947. At the end of 2019 it was 23.1%.
Exhibit 2
Factory construction has fallen 31% since its peak in Q3 2024, to $171 billion a year
Private investment in manufacturing structures, billions of dollars, seasonally adjusted annual rate, quarterly
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, NIPA Table 5.3.5.
In volume, businesses are building about what they were then: up 0.2% since the end of 2019, while business investment as a whole grew 34%. Spending on structures fell 3% over the past year.
Factories show the turn most clearly. Construction of manufacturing structures rose from $80 billion a year at the end of 2019 to a peak of $248 billion in the third quarter of 2024. It has fallen in each of the 7 quarters since, to $171 billion: down 31%, and still more than twice its 2019 level.
3 · The mix
Machines, ideas, buildings: the order has changed
BEA sorts business investment into three kinds: structures, equipment, and intellectual property products. The last is mostly software and research and development, 94% of it in the second quarter of 2026.
Exhibit 3
Equipment 40.6%, intellectual property 39.7%, structures 19.7%: buildings' smallest share on record
Share of private nonresidential fixed investment by type, current dollars, seasonally adjusted, quarterly
EquipmentIntellectual propertyStructures
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, NIPA Table 5.3.5. Stratonomics analysis.
From the second quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2025, businesses spent more on intellectual property than on equipment, every quarter. Since the first quarter of 2026, equipment has been ahead again: 40.6% of business investment against 39.7%. Take computers out and intellectual property would still lead.
Intellectual property is still the fastest-growing kind in volume, up 60% since the end of 2019, against 32% for equipment and 0.2% for structures. American business is investing in code, research and machines, and holding its buildings flat.
4 · The last time
Business investment is its largest share of GDP since 2000
Business investment came to 14.5% of GDP in the second quarter of 2026, up from 13.7% at the end of 2019. The last quarter it ran this high was the fourth quarter of 2000.
Exhibit 4
Business investment reached 14.5% of GDP in Q2 2026, the highest since 2000
Private nonresidential fixed investment as a share of GDP, current dollars, quarterly
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, NIPA Tables 1.1.5 and 5.3.5. Stratonomics analysis.
The fair objection writes itself. The share peaked at 14.7% in the third quarter of 2000, and what followed was a bust. Spending on computers fell 28% between Q3 2000 and Q4 2002. Business investment as a whole fell 13% from its peak, and the share of GDP sank to 11.8% by the first quarter of 2004.
The figures cannot say whether this cycle ends the same way. They can say where the exposure sits. Computers fell more than twice as far as business investment overall last time, and this time they made 38% of the year's growth.
Part 2 · How the US compares
5 · The G7
The US puts more of its investment into ideas than any other G7 economy
The OECD compiles each member's investment by asset, with housing and government included. On that measure the US put 31% of all its fixed investment into intellectual property in 2024, up from 29% in 2019. The UK, at 28%, and Japan, at 27%, came next. France put 23%, Germany 19%, Canada 15% and Italy 13%. The euro area as a whole put 20%, 11 points below the US.
Exhibit 5
The US put 31% of its fixed investment into intellectual property in 2024, the most in the G7
All fixed investment by asset, share of the total, current prices, 2024. Includes housing and government
Intellectual propertyMachinery and equipmentOther buildings and structuresDwellings
Source: OECD (2026), Annual GFCF by asset, accessed October 21, 2026. Stratonomics calculation from OECD data.
The tilt is not American alone. Every G7 economy but Italy put a larger share into intellectual property in 2024 than in 2019; Italy's fell from 17%. But the gap is the point for anyone competing across the Atlantic: the US economy spends more of its capital on intellectual property than the euro area does, and less on buildings and structures other than housing.
Part 2 · What it means
6 · Risks
The risks, systemic and company-specific
Half of last year's growth in business investment rode on one family of machines. That concentrates both the opportunity and the exposure.
Systemic
Risk
Who is exposed
What to watch
One category carrying the growth
Makers of computers, chips, power and cooling equipment, and the contractors who install them
Computers' part of the rise in business investment in each quarterly BEA release
A repeat of the last cycle
Suppliers whose order books grew with the buildout, and their lenders
Business investment as a share of GDP against its 14.7% peak in the third quarter of 2000
The factory boom fading
Industrial contractors, construction equipment makers, and towns built around new plants
Whether manufacturing structures keep falling each quarter or find a floor
Company-specific
Risk
Who is exposed
What to watch
Short-lived assets on long-lived assumptions
Companies buying computing capacity
The payback period against the useful life of the hardware
Capacity sized for the peak
Suppliers to factory projects
Your backlog against the factory construction line, $171 billion a year and falling
Benchmarking against the wrong mix
Companies comparing their investment with rivals in another economy
Your intellectual property share against the US's 31% and the euro area's 20%
7 · The agenda
What management teams and boards should do
The same shift reads differently depending on which side of the purchase order you sit.
If you are buying computing capacity
Price each purchase against the revenue it must earn while the hardware is current, not over a building's life.
Stage the commitment: release capital against signed demand, not against the plan.
Rent the part of demand you cannot yet see, and own only the part you can.
Ask at the next board meetingIf the next generation of hardware arrived early, what would this purchase be worth?
If you sell into the buildout
Read the computer line in BEA's quarterly release as your market's pulse.
Stress-test the plan against the last cycle: computer spending fell 28% between Q3 2000 and Q4 2002.
Cap the capacity you add against any one customer's orders.
Ask at the next board meetingIf our customers cut computer spending by a quarter next year, what would we do in the first ninety days?
If you build, equip or supply factories
Plan for the plateau: factory construction is down 31% from its peak, and still more than twice its 2019 level.
Follow the money inside the walls: equipment and software for plants that already exist.
Find the assumptions in this year's budget that came from the Q3 2024 pace, and reset them.
Ask at the next board meetingWhich of our plans quietly assumed the factory boom would last?
8 · The bottom line
An investment mix is a forecast written in capital
A building bets on decades of demand. A computer bets on the next few years. In the second quarter of 2026, American business put more of its investment into computers than at any time since BEA began counting them, and less into structures than at any time since it began counting those.
That can be the right bet, and it can be the herd. The four cases below are capacity built before the demand arrived: two that held, one built for demand that did not come, and one pledged and never built.
From the Decision Cases
The same choice, up close
Building capacity before the demand arrives: four decisions from our Decision Records.
TSMC · 2020
TSMC's first Arizona fab doubled from $12B to $20B — most of the '$165B blowout' is other fabs
The choice
Build fab in Arizona
How it went
HeldThe fab was built, reached world-class yields, and TSMC doubled down with further commitments.
One data story every Tuesday: what happened, what it means, and the figures you can quote. Free.
Read with care
What the data does not tell us
Why. The figures show what businesses bought, not why or for what. Artificial intelligence, cloud demand, subsidies, tariffs and interest rates all moved in these years. This report does not try to separate them, and it does not say who bought the computers.
What business investment covers. BEA's business investment is private nonresidential fixed investment: spending by private businesses and nonprofit institutions on structures, equipment and intellectual property products used in production. It leaves out housing and government. Dollar figures are seasonally adjusted annual rates.
Dollars and volume. Shares and dollar amounts are at current prices. Growth in volume uses BEA's quantity indexes, which take price changes out. Computer prices rose over these years, so computers grew less in volume than in dollars.
Two measures. The OECD's figures cover all fixed investment, housing and government included, so its US share for intellectual property in 2024 (31%) is lower than BEA's business-only share for the same year (39%). The OECD also counts mineral exploration as intellectual property, where BEA counts mining exploration, shafts and wells as structures. The comparison across countries uses the OECD's figures for every country, the US included.
Revisions. BEA revises its estimates, and an annual update can change several years at once. This edition uses the figures published as of October 21, 2026; the next edition will use the revised ones. 2024 is the latest year the OECD reports by asset for every G7 economy and the euro area.
Figures you can quote
Each with its source
US businesses spent $420 billion a year on computers and peripheral equipment in the second quarter of 2026, 8.9% of all business investment and the largest share since the series began in 1959.
Bureau of Economic Analysis, NIPA Table 5.3.5. Stratonomics, Q4 2026.
Structures took 19.7% of US business investment in the second quarter of 2026, the smallest share in BEA's quarterly records, which begin in 1947.
Bureau of Economic Analysis, NIPA Table 5.3.5. Stratonomics, Q4 2026.
The US put 31% of all its fixed investment into intellectual property in 2024, the most in the G7 and 11 points more than the euro area.
OECD, Annual GFCF by asset. Stratonomics calculation from OECD data. Stratonomics, Q4 2026.
Appendix A
Method and sources
US figures are the Bureau of Economic Analysis's estimates of private nonresidential fixed investment by type (NIPA Table 5.3.5, current dollars, seasonally adjusted at annual rates; Table 5.3.3, quantity indexes) and of GDP (Table 1.1.5), read from BEA's own flat files. Each series code was checked against BEA's series register: its label, its metric and the table line that carries it. Structures, equipment and intellectual property are BEA's three types; computers are the line for computers and peripheral equipment, and factories the line for manufacturing structures. Shares are of current-dollar totals; growth in volume is the change in the quantity index. The pre-2020 base is the fourth quarter of 2019. International figures are the OECD's Annual GFCF by asset (DSD_NAMAIN10@DF_TABLE1_EXPENDITURE_GFCF_ASSET): gross fixed capital formation for the total economy, by asset, at current prices in national currency, for the G7 and the euro area (20 countries). Each asset's share is its value over total fixed assets in the same currency and year; cultivated biological resources, under 1% everywhere shown, are left out of the chart. The year shown is the latest the OECD reports by asset for all eight areas. Both sources were read on October 21, 2026. Nothing is estimated or modeled; every share, ratio and growth rate is computed from the published values.
Measure
Publisher
Series
Frequency
Business investment by type: structures, equipment, intellectual property
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