According to Kobeissi Letter, an independent macroeconomic research firm, citing the WTO and the Financial Times, global trade in AI-related goods surged 42% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, marking the highest annual growth rate on record.

2026-09-22

According to Kobeissi Letter, an independent macroeconomic research firm, citing the WTO and the Financial Times, global trade in AI-related goods surged 42% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, marking the highest annual growth rate on record. This growth rate surpasses the 22% growth rate for the whole of 2025 and also exceeds the 11% growth rate in 2024. Meanwhile, trade in non-AI products grew by only 7% year-on-year, compared to 5% in 2025 and 1% in 2024. Driven by this, global merchandise trade totaled 12% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, higher than the 7% growth in 2025 and significantly higher than the 2% growth in 2024. Consequently, AI-related goods accounted for 18.7% of global trade, up from 13.8% in 2024.