Fed Governor Lisa Cook says AI-driven data center demand and energy costs are keeping US inflation near 3.8%, even as FHFA and S&P Case-Shiller data show home prices reaccelerating despite higher borrowing costs.
Schwab’s Kevin Gordon highlights Cook’s Monday warning that AI demand and Middle East oil pass-through will keep inflation under pressure even as she judged the labor market able to absorb last week’s hike. Source
Wall Street and the Federal Reserve have spent three decades assuming heavy tech investment eventually pushes prices down, not up. Alan Greenspan built his "productivity miracle" thesis of the late 1990s on that logic: computing spend lifts output per worker fast enough to offset the demand it creates. Fed Governor Lisa Cook just told an Oakland audience the AI buildout isn't playing along, not yet anyway.
