Strip artificial intelligence names from the S&P 500, and the vaunted American stock rally starts to look remarkably average. Europe, long dismissed as an also-ran, matches the US almost point for point.
The S&P 500 has climbed approximately 13.5% since January, piling on roughly $9 trillion in market value. Tech giants drove that surge even while other corners of the index struggled. But an index tracking only non-AI companies gained just 5.5% year to date. Europe’s STOXX 600, covering the continent’s 600 largest firms, returned 5.6% over the same stretch.
BNP Paribas economists James Egelhof and Andrew Husby put it bluntly: the bloc likely missed the AI investment wave.
The transatlantic gap predates ChatGPT’s late-2022 debut. America benefits from stronger demographics, heavier fiscal stimulus, deeper capital markets, cheap domestic energy, and a better-capitalized corporate base. Yet the AI capex boom supercharged that existing advantage.
Global AI investment should top $1 trillion this year, according to Bank of America, climbing toward $1.4 trillion by 2027. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs data shows North America claiming roughly 60% of new data center capacity in 2026, versus Europe’s 10% share. US firms host around three-quarters of worldwide computing capacity; the eurozone holds just 5%.
Europe hasn’t sat out entirely. German-led manufacturing across the eurozone registered its strongest growth in four years, per S&P Global. Eurozone firms will direct around 10% of investment toward AI in 2026, and AI-related borrowing fueled 25% of first-quarter corporate credit expansion, according to ECB data.
Goldman Sachs estimates AI will add 0.1 percentage point to European GDP growth in 2026. ECB President Christine Lagarde acknowledged that Europe runs advanced industrial societies well but struggles to deploy new digital tools. With AI, she said, the picture already looks different.
Still, headwinds persist. French bond spreads versus Germany hit their widest since 2012 as political turmoil grips Paris ahead of the 2027 election. German manufacturing orders tumbled 10.6% month over month in August. And US hyperscalers now account for roughly 10% of new euro-denominated bond issuance by nonfinancial firms, effectively tapping European savings to fund American infrastructure.
Europe will pay for this boom whether or not it shares in the growth, Lagarde warned. For now, AI hasn’t created America’s edge, but it continues to widen it.
