AI Spending Drives Business Equipment Orders to Six-Year High

New orders for U.S. nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, a commonly used measure of business equipment investment, increased 3.3% in March from the prior month, up from a 1.6% gain in February, the U.S. Census Bureau reported and Reuters covered on April 29, 2026. Reuters reported shipments of those "core capital goods" rose 1.2% in March. Reuters and PYMNTS attribute much of the strength to business spending on artificial intelligence and the construction of data centers. Reuters also noted that the gain was the largest in nearly six years and Bloomberg described the March increase as the greatest since mid-2020. Reuters additionally cited a polling median that had expected a 0.5% rise.

Editorial analysis - technical context: media coverage links the March surge to purchases of servers, networking equipment, and other data-center hardware needed for large-scale AI workloads. For practitioners, that pattern implies continuing near-term demand for high-performance compute, GPUs, networking gear, and facilities-capacity expansion rather than only software licenses. Reported monthly metrics here reflect orders (bookings) and shipments; orders signal near-term capital commitments while shipments track the flow of equipment to firms and can lag bookings.

reporting frames this data point as part of a broader, year-long accumulation of capital investment that has been supported by AI-related projects and favorable tax provisions, per Bloomberg's coverage cited by PYMNTS. Reuters highlighted two additional dynamics that likely amplified the month-to-month jump: firms accelerating purchases ahead of anticipated price increases or supply constraints tied to geopolitical tensions, and residual demand from policy-related uncertainty earlier in the year that delayed investment. Stephen Stanley of Santander U.S. Capital Markets was quoted by Reuters saying, "The stunning degree of strength during a month when firms would have had valid reason to be cautious attests to the substantial energy in business investment that was bottled up last year due to policy-related uncertainty." That quote is a contemporaneous economist view reported in Reuters.

observers reading these data should treat the March spike as a strong macro signal for continued procurement of infrastructure components that support AI workloads, including server chassis, accelerators, power and cooling systems, and network switching. This pattern typically increases vendor activity across hardware, systems integration, and colocation services. It also tends to shift procurement timelines, inventory planning, and vendor roadmaps in vendor ecosystems that supply data-center gear.

monitor the Commerce Department's advance GDP estimates and subsequent capital spending releases for continuation or reversion of this trend. Watch vendor order books and earnings commentary from major server, GPU, and data-center firms for confirmation of sustained demand. Track component lead times and pricing indices for chips, memory, and networking gear to gauge whether firms are front-loading orders due to anticipated shortages or price moves. Also watch tax-policy and regulatory signals that affect capital-expensing incentives, since Bloomberg noted those provisions as a supporting factor.

What happened and the numerical figures above are drawn from reporting by Reuters and PYMNTS that cite the U.S. Census Bureau and other published poll expectations. Where the media attribute causes (AI investment, data-center construction, precautionary ordering because of geopolitical risk), those attributions are reported by Reuters and PYMNTS; they are presented here as reported explanations, not as definitive causal proof.