SEOUL, Sept. 20, 2026 โ A claim circulating among Korean readers that artificial intelligence could one day account for as much as 25 percent of United States gross domestic product has been examined by the fact-checking desk of this newspaper, which reviewed 12 primary sources, including official White House material and Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis economic analysis published in January 2026. The desk finds that the figure is rooted in genuine official and central bank discussion of AI's expanding economic footprint, but that its framing invites more confidence than forward-looking projections alone can support.
The 25 percent figure has spread through Korean tech commentary and online communities, often paired with imagery drawn from official US government channels. Material reviewed for this fact check included a photograph hosted on the White House website and two charts from a Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis On the Economy blog post examining the relationship between AI and GDP, both uploaded in January 2026. In total, the desk examined 12 primary sources before reaching its final ruling.
The reviewed material confirms that the idea of AI claiming a substantially larger share of US economic output is actively discussed in official and central bank channels: the White House has showcased AI-related economic themes, and the St. Louis Fed has published chart-based analysis of AI's relationship to GDP. What the sources do not establish is a firm measurement. The 25 percent level reads as a scenario-dependent possibility, tied to assumptions about investment, adoption and productivity gains โ not as a present-day accounting fact.
For Korean industry, the projection is more than an American curiosity. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix supply the memory hardware that underpins AI data centers, and domestic platforms such as Naver are racing to develop Korean-language LLMs. If US AI activity were to swell toward a quarter of national output, demand for semiconductors, GPUs and related infrastructure would scale with it; if the scenario disappoints, investment cycles could correct just as sharply.
After weighing 12 primary sources against the claim's confident framing, this desk's final ruling on the assertion that AI could come to account for 25 percent of US GDP is: Partly True.