JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon told CNBC the billions poured into AI infrastructure will pay off, calling it a 1% GDP boost this year and next.
Jamie Dimon is betting the AI spending boom pays off.
The JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO told CNBC's Leslie Picker in a video interview that aired Wednesday that the billions pouring into AI infrastructure will ultimately prove worthwhile.
"In my own view, and I may be wrong, it'll ultimately play out and pay out," Dimon said. "These people are doing real calculations about what's needed. They see what it costs to do the frontier models. They see what it costs to do inferencing. The need is going up dramatically."
He said AI spending is also driving the economy, "because the increase alone is 1% of GDP, and next year it's going to be another 1% of GDP increase."
"You've got to get steel and cement and all these things to build the data centers," he added.
When asked whether a cooling AI market would threaten the economy, Dimon said that while there are "a lot of things to worry about," this scenario is "not high on the list."
JPMorgan has poured significant capital into tech and AI projects this year. Dimon said on a January earnings call that he didn't want the bank to fall behind Wall Street rivals and fintech companies.
"We are going to stay out front, so help us God," he said in response to a question from Wells Fargo (WFC) analyst Mike Mayo.
The bank announced in February it was boosting its technology budget to $19.8 billion this year, including investments in AI projects.
Since then, the company has pushed its engineers to use AI more, tracking their usage on internal dashboards. Business Insider saw screenshots of some tracking systems and spoke to current and former developers, most of whom were worried about being labeled underperformers if their AI use didn't increase.
During a second-quarter earnings call in July, Dimon said AI has led to as much as a 40% reduction in jobs in some areas of the firm. He added it wouldn't suddenly shrink its operational budget.
He hasn't been entirely bullish on high AI spending. In July, Dimon said during a CNBC appearance that companies need to be rational about AI spending, "like any other resource we use."
The company's AI leadership is also undergoing a reset. Its AI chief, Teresa Heitsenrether, announced in July she would retire after four decades at the bank.
JPMorgan carries an Alpha Score of 67, labeled Moderate, at a current price of $359.24, up 0.48% today.
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