U.S. builds AI infrastructure while Europe leads in adoption, Apollo says

The United States and Europe occupy sharply different positions in the artificial intelligence economy, according to Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. One side is constructing the foundational systems; the other is putting them to work.

On the supply side, the United States holds a commanding lead across key measures. Hyperscaler capital expenditures are projected to approach $800 billion in 2026. American data-center capacity is roughly three times Europe’s, and U.S. companies account for the dominant share of both advanced AI models and global semiconductor value.

Adoption patterns tell a different story. Several European countries currently outpace the United States in AI uptake, and a broad range of European firms are already integrating the technology into operations. This positions Europe as an intensive user of infrastructure it neither financed nor developed—and that it would find difficult to replicate at comparable scale or speed.

The resulting picture is asymmetric rather than zero-sum. The United States remains the primary builder of AI capacity, yet both regions are active adopters. Europe’s willingness to deploy tools built elsewhere underscores how quickly the technology is spreading beyond its point of origin, even as the underlying infrastructure stays concentrated on one side of the Atlantic.

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