TOTO Ltd

AI-related investment is generating unusually large spillover effects across the U.S. economy, according to UBS research, with every 1 percentage-point contribution to growth from AI-related investment generating about 1.46 percentage points of investment growth in the following quarter. UBS economist Arend Kapteyn said in a Sept. 25 research note that AI-related technology investment is growing about 30% year over year, while other business fixed investment has risen just 0.8% and residential investment has contracted 3.8%. Of the 1.46 percentage points, 0.46 percentage points comes from continued investment within AI-related categories, 0.30 percentage points through software and research and development, and 0.69 percentage points through other sectors. UBS defines its AI investment proxy across five national accounts categories — electrical transmission and distribution equipment, special industry machinery, computers and peripherals, communications equipment and data centres — which together account for roughly 18% of non-residential fixed investment and about 2.5% of GDP. The spillover is particularly visible in industries supplying data-centre infrastructure, including gas turbines, electricity infrastructure and utilities, and UBS also pointed to less obvious beneficiaries such as Japan's TOTO, whose electrostatic chucks for semiconductor production now account for more than half of the company's profits. The multiplier effect has strengthened over time, with the estimated contribution from a 1 percentage-point increase in AI-related capital expenditure rising from 88 basis points in 1980 to 106 basis points in 2000 and 146 basis points by June 2026.