AI Technology Diffusion and Trillion-Finance Gap: Morgan Stanley Illustrates the Next Stage of Global Economic Landscape

Morgan Stanley recently released a research report covering key areas such as AI technology, providing insights into global economic and market trends. In terms of the diffusion of AI technology, their thematic strategists conducted the fourth AI exposure mapping on over 3600 global stocks, finding that the impact of AI is expanding continuously. AI exposure and importance are rising in more companies, and there are clear alpha opportunities in relative returns and profit corrections. They recommend focusing on four types of stocks: those with increasing AI importance and exposure ratings, stocks where AI has become a core investment logic, AI users with pricing power, and stocks with the highest AI importance and pricing power. In the global data center field, it is expected that global data center capacity will grow by 23% annually by 2030, with the United States contributing to 60% of the growth and capacities in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia expanding rapidly (6-7 times). Under the leadership of four mega-scale cloud service providers, the capital expenditure on AI by large US tech companies is expected to increase dramatically, with a forecasted compound annual growth rate of 19% from 2024 to 2029. However, energy supply, planning permits, GPU supply, and low-carbon materials are major obstacles to development. Regarding AI financing, global data center investment is expected to reach $2.9 trillion by 2028, with a financing gap of $1.5 trillion after deducting the planned $1.4 trillion. This gap will primarily be filled by the credit market, with private credit potentially providing around $800 billion, new investment-grade bonds contributing $200 billion, and securitized credit structures such as ABS and CMBS providing $150 billion. In the global semiconductor field, due to the relaxation of export restrictions on lower-end AI GPUs (such as H20) by the United States towards NVIDIA, NVIDIA, AMD, and Broadcom will continue to enter the Chinese market. NVIDIA is expected to dominate the Chinese AI GPU market, with revenues in China reaching $25-35 billion by 2025. Meanwhile, Samsung will also benefit directly from the consumption of H20. The bank believes that local GPU development in China will continue to advance, with a self-sufficiency rate expected to reach 39% by 2027. In terms of US valuation and tax, the tax provisions in the Build Back Better Act could significantly reduce the cash tax rate of US companies. Immediate deductions (such as accelerated depreciation and research expense deductions) will bring significant short-term cash flow benefits, potentially reducing the overall cash tax rate of companies to single digits. In the US economic sector, the impact of tariffs on the prices of core goods has already become apparent, with prices of categories such as appliances and furniture significantly rising due to tariffs. It is estimated that tariffs will drive core PCE inflation up by about 60 basis points by 2025, with inflation responses in some categories not fully apparent yet, indicating future pressures. In terms of monetary policy, the US dollar is expected to further depreciate. If the hedging ratio returns to historical averages, the Euro/US dollar exchange rate may increase by 7%; if hedging is strengthened, the exchange rate may rise to 1.30 or higher. Currently, nearly half of Europe's assets held in the US are not hedged against currency risks, and potential hedging flows will significantly impact the exchange rate. Regarding the Chinese economy, the actual GDP growth rate in the second quarter of 2025 exceeded expectations, leading to a revised full-year growth forecast of 4.8%, an increase of 30 basis points. However, growth is expected to slow down in the second half of the year, with a forecast of 4.5% in the third quarter and 4.2% in the fourth quarter.