CPI

Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter said Australia's AI investment surge will lift inflation before any productivity gains arrive. Data centre construction is tightening already-stretched skilled trades and pushing building costs into the CPI, while AI has barely moved headcount yet hiring and employment are weakening in AI-exposed occupations, especially for younger workers. She also warned equities and corporate debt could reprice sharply if AI returns disappoint.

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood argues that AI training and inference costs are falling 75% to 99% annually, yet official inflation gauges such as CPI and PPI fail to capture how fast software prices are actually declining. The claim is a macro-level assertion without a disclosed methodology or data source.