How AI could reinforce dollar dominance

SINGAPORE — The signing of a 20-year data-center lease probably does not register as a monetary event. Even the announcement of a dollar-pegged stablecoin linked to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom would not necessarily be given this label. But such developments are proliferating—and contributing to the formation of a system in which a critical input for the global economy is priced, paid for, and ultimately recycled into dollar assets. This is not a new concept. Since the 1970s, the pricing of oil in U.S. dollars has increased global demand for the currency and generated export revenues for oil producers, which often directed them toward US markets. But the petrodollar is a template, not a prophecy. It shows that when production, payments, and asset-recycling reinforce one another, an indispensable input can embed a currency in global markets. AI might generate its own version of this dynamic. Discussions about who will “win” in the AI economy often focus on the race to build the most advanced models. But the true transformation begins when model performance converges, an