a16z and Goldman Sachs report: AI investment hits new high, U.S. construction industry productivity stagnates

ME News Report, April 11 (UTC+8), recently, a16z released data showing that global venture capital investment reached $300 billion in the first quarter of 2026, a record high, with about 80% flowing into AI companies. The combined funding of four companies—OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Waymo—totaled $188 billion, accounting for 65% of the total. Even excluding these mega deals, the investment still reached $112 billion. Early-stage funding increased by 41% year-over-year, seed round funding grew by 31%, but the number of deals decreased by 30%. The article suggests that the current AI technology cycle is different from cloud computing and mobile internet, involving hardware infrastructure, reflecting a shift from “bits” to “atoms.” On the other hand, Goldman Sachs research indicates that since 1950, overall U.S. economic labor productivity has roughly doubled, but productivity in the construction industry has stagnated or even slightly declined compared to 75 years ago. The analysis attributes this to the basic halt in adopting new technologies since the 1960s, as most machinery and equipment have existed since the 1950s and have not benefited from spillover innovations in computing or communications, along with increased land use regulations reducing annual productivity growth by 0.7 percentage points. The fundamental reason for the stagnation in construction productivity remains widely debated within the industry. (Source: InFoQ)