The IMF just published its latest forecasts and it assume no extra productivity growth from AI, and the report finds that economy-wide data still show little effect on wages, jobs or measured productivity, despite gains on specific tasks.

The surge in AI hardware trade comes mostly from higher prices rather than more units shipped, and rising memory chip costs are already pushing up core-goods inflation in some rich economies.

In the IMF’s models, an AI bust costs the world economy almost twice what an AI boom adds: 1.1% of output lost by 2028, against 0.6% gained by 2029.

AI hardware trade has roughly tripled in value since 2019 because prices rose, not because more was shipped, with Taiwan and Korea supplying 62% of net exports and the US and China taking over 75% of net imports.