The stock market has barely blinked this year, shrugging off the Iran war<\/a>, a surge of inflation<\/a> and a flurry of new tariffs.<\/p>\n The latest potential hiccup arrived in recent days as industry leaders sounded the alarm about artificial intelligence, a key driver of U.S. economic expansion and investor optimism, some analysts told ABC News.<\/p>\n A flood of cash has poured into projects like data centers<\/a> and advanced chips, delivering robust earnings and giving rise to optimism about what the future may hold, they said.<\/p>\n Potential new guardrails for the industry and rising interest rates could dampen investment and cool off some stocks, some analysts said. Still, they added, a likely continuation of growth for AI and the wider economy may keep the major indexes rising anyway.<\/p>\n “This moment of scrutiny is a test,” Mike Loukas, CEO of TrueMark Investments, told ABC News.<\/p>\n So far this year, the stock market has shown little sign of retreat. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed nearly 8%, while the S&P 500 has jumped 11%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has surged 13%.<\/p>\n Some top AI firms have fared even better. Chip giant Nvidia<\/a>, the most valuable company in the world as measured by market capitalization, has seen shares climb 18%. Rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices has soared 155%.<\/p>\n Those gains have extended beyond the AI sector to companies as far-flung as construction firms tasked with building data centers and equipment manufacturers supplying those construction firms, Ivan Feinseth, a market analyst at Tigress Financial, told ABC News.<\/p>\n “It’s the driving force for our economy right now,” Feinseth said. “We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in AI infrastructure.”<\/p>\n Photo illustration of AI artificial intelligence technology .<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Adobe Stock<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n AI investment has accounted for roughly a third of U.S. gross domestic product growth in 2026, according to a study released by ING Markets<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n Some research, however, indicates AI remains challenging for companies to adopt. Roughly 95% of businesses invested in AI have failed to make money off of the technology, a MIT study<\/a> last year found, estimating the combined amount spent by the firms is around $40 billion.<\/p>\n![\"Adobe\"](\"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/e11b8ba6-90ff-4206-8f46-364a87210ca1\/ai-as-gmh-260527_1779895018229_hpEmbed_3x2.jpg?w=375 "\\"Adobe\\"")
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