The Digital-Energy Recomposition of the Kitchin Cycle: Exploratory Evidence from U.S. IT and Irish Data-Centre Series (1995-2025)
Abstract
Using quarterly FRED and CSO Ireland data over 1995Q1-2025Q4, we examine whether U.S.\ IT investment and Irish data-centre electricity are recomposing the Kitchin cycle around energy- and compute-backed assets. Three findings stand out. First, a Quandt-Andrews sup-Wald test locates a significant break in the U.S.\ IT-GDP correlation at 2014Q3 (sup-W = 9.69; r falls from +0.45 to −0.12); the Fisher r-to-z test survives Bonferroni adjustment (z = +3.11, pBonf = 0.006), whereas the analogous test on the imposed Cloud-vs-AI boundary does not (pBonf = 0.164), so ``Strategic Decoupling'' pre-dates the AI Era by approximately six years. Second, in Ireland the synchronous AI-Era correlation between metered data-centre electricity and Real GDP is large (r = +0.41, N = 16) but \emph{collapses to r ≈ 0 when Real GDP is replaced by Real GNP}, suggesting the headline is largely an artefact of the shared multinational tax-structure footprint between hyperscaler operations and Irish gross output. Third, the Irish cross-correlation profile is asymmetric in the opposite direction to a leading-indicator reading: the largest positive coefficients cluster on the k < 0 side (GDP precedes data-centre load), so compute capacity is better read as coincident or moderately lagging. Given the small AI-Era samples and the absence of a quarterly multinational-adjusted aggregate such as GNI*, all coefficients are exploratory; subject to these caveats, the U.S.\ Kitchin cycle is best dated to 2014Q3, and the Irish Energy-Data Nexus is dominated by multinational firm activity.
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BibTeX
@misc{ziollko2026digitalenergy,
title = {{The Digital-Energy Recomposition of the Kitchin Cycle: Exploratory Evidence from U.S. IT and Irish Data-Centre Series (1995-2025)}},
author = {Bartosz Ziollko and Adam Niedzialkowski and Bartosz Szyma},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.33122},
eprint = {2610.33122},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.33122},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The Digital-Energy Recomposition of the Kitchin Cycle: Exploratory Evidence from U.S. IT and Irish Data-Centre Series (1995-2025)
AU - Bartosz Ziollko
AU - Adam Niedzialkowski
AU - Bartosz Szyma
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.33122
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.33122
AB - Using quarterly FRED and CSO Ireland data over 1995Q1-2025Q4, we examine whether U.S.\ IT investment and Irish data-centre electricity are recomposing the Kitchin cycle around energy- and compute-backed assets. Three findings stand out. First, a Quandt-Andrews sup-Wald test locates a significant break in the U.S.\ IT-GDP correlation at 2014Q3 (sup-W = 9.69; r falls from +0.45 to −0.12); the Fisher r-to-z test survives Bonferroni adjustment (z = +3.11, p_Bonf = 0.006), whereas the analogous test on the imposed Cloud-vs-AI boundary does not (p_Bonf = 0.164), so ``Strategic Decoupling'' pre-dates the AI Era by approximately six years. Second, in Ireland the synchronous AI-Era correlation between metered data-centre electricity and Real GDP is large (r = +0.41, N = 16) but \emph{collapses to r ≈ 0 when Real GDP is replaced by Real GNP}, suggesting the headline is largely an artefact of the shared multinational tax-structure footprint between hyperscaler operations and Irish gross output. Third, the Irish cross-correlation profile is asymmetric in the opposite direction to a leading-indicator reading: the largest positive coefficients cluster on the k < 0 side (GDP precedes data-centre load), so compute capacity is better read as coincident or moderately lagging. Given the small AI-Era samples and the absence of a quarterly multinational-adjusted aggregate such as GNI*, all coefficients are exploratory; subject to these caveats, the U.S.\ Kitchin cycle is best dated to 2014Q3, and the Irish Energy-Data Nexus is dominated by multinational firm activity.
ER -