{"slug": "more-indians-live-in-the-gulf-states-than-in-the-us-uk-and-canada-combined", "title": "More Indians live in the Gulf states than in the US, UK, and Canada combined", "summary": "The U.S. Census Bureau reported that $4.4 billion was spent on data center construction in June 2026 alone, a five-fold increase compared to November 2022 when OpenAI released ChatGPT, reflecting rapid growth driven by AI investments. The figures cover privately-funded construction costs, excluding IT hardware.", "body_md": "September 1\n\nThe United States is home to thousands of data centers. They are part of the infrastructure that powers many digital services, including email, gaming, streaming, social media, and, increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI).\n\nAs this chart shows, between 2018 and 2022, spending on building data centers in the US hovered between $500 million and $1 billion per month (when adjusted for inflation).\n\nBut since late 2022, large investments in AI have led to a rapid growth in data center construction — both by expanding existing facilities and building new, larger ones.\n\nThe latest figures released by the US Census Bureau estimate that $4.4 billion was spent in June 2026 alone — a 5-fold increase compared to November 2022, when ChatGPT was released by OpenAI.\n\nThese figures cover privately-funded construction and represent only the money spent on building the actual facilities, including materials and construction labor. They don’t include the cost of IT hardware like servers and storage, which can represent a very large share of total investment.\n\nAugust 29\n\nMalaria is an infectious disease that kills over 600,000 people a year. Most of them, children.\n\nIts high death toll is at least partly explained by the fact that there are so many infections every year: an estimated 260 to 310 million.\n\nI was curious to know how often people living in the worst-affected areas are infected with malaria. In the chart, you can see estimates of new cases per 100 people across high-burden countries. In recent decades, infection rates have declined but remain very high. There are around 30 new cases per 100 people each year.\n\nIt would be tempting to simplify this number and say that 30% of people living in Nigeria are infected each year. But that’s probably far from reality.\n\nThis is because the same people are often reinfected. When I looked at the scientific literature, I was surprised by how often. A study focused on children in Uganda found that those without preventative measures were infected around five times per year. Another found that in Burkina Faso, it was up to six times.\n\nSo, the reality behind the “30 cases per 100 people” average is probably very skewed. Many — particularly children who have not built up immunity — are infected multiple times per year, while most of the population is not infected at all.\n\nAugust 27\n\nMore than 100,000 children under the age of 15 died from drowning in 2023. I found this statistic staggering when I first saw it. Drowning is one of the top causes of death among older children.\n\nThe World Health Organization explains that around 90% of all drowning deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. There, much of the risk comes from everyday exposure to water in ponds, rivers, and lakes used for bathing and washing clothes, or open wells used to collect water.\n\nDeaths like these can be prevented, and they increasingly are. Drowning used to be far more common than it is today. That’s the focus of the chart.\n\nIn 1980, almost 30 children under five died from drowning for every 100,000 children in that age group. By 2023, this rate had fallen to 7.4. Death rates among older children also fell substantially.\n\nTargeted measures can reduce drowning risks. These include covering wells, using doorway barriers or playpens to keep young children away from water, and water-safety training, among others.\n\nRising living standards matter as well, and much of the decline in the chart reflects this. As many countries have become richer, access to safe water has improved, so fewer families depend on ponds and open wells for everyday needs.\n\nAugust 25\n\nAmerica’s most popular type of meat is chicken. In Argentina, it’s beef. And in Japan, it’s seafood.\n\nThere are large differences in the popularity of meat types across the world.\n\nIn the chart, you can see the share of supply that comes from different types of meat: poultry, beef, pork, sheep and goat, and fish and seafood. I’ve picked just a selection of countries that highlight some of the variation across the world.\n\nOf course, countries also eat very different amounts of meat; this chart focuses on the relative quantities in national diets.\n\nThis data comes from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.\n\nAugust 22\n\nMany countries are in a fairly unique demographic position in history: their populations are shrinking not due to a temporary shock but to sustained structural decline.\n\nIf we look at the United Nations’ population estimates and medium projections, 66 countries and territories had already passed peak population this year. Almost all of them are in Europe and East Asia.\n\nBut there is one country in Southeast Asia in this position: Thailand. As you can see in the chart, the UN projects that its population will continue to fall throughout this century.\n\nThis is the result of a rapid drop in fertility rates. In 1970, women in Thailand had an average of 6 children; twenty years later, that had fallen to 2. This was as fast as China’s decline. Today, the rate is at most 1.2 children per woman, and some national statistics put it closer to 1.\n\nWhat makes Thailand unusual is that this happened while it was still a relatively poor country. In 1970, it launched its National Family Planning Program. This was voluntary and non-coercive, but effectively increased contraceptive use, family planning access, and education levels for women.\n\nAugust 20\n\nIn the 1970s, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution asking developed countries to contribute at least 0.7% of their national income to foreign aid. Most countries signed off on this goal, except for Switzerland and the United States.\n\nBut very few countries have met this target in the fifty years since then. Even today, only a handful of countries do.\n\nIn 2023, five countries met this target: Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark. Two years on, this has dropped to four, as Germany’s contribution shrank to 0.6%.\n\nAs you can see in the chart, other developed countries give less than 0.7% of their national income.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/more-indians-live-in-the-gulf-states-than-in-the-us-uk-and-canada-combined", "canonical_source": "https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/more-indians-live-in-the-gulf-states-than-in-the-us-uk-and-canada-combined", "published_at": "2026-09-03 17:37:10+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-03 17:53:21.894831+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["U.S. Census Bureau", "OpenAI", "ChatGPT"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/more-indians-live-in-the-gulf-states-than-in-the-us-uk-and-canada-combined", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/more-indians-live-in-the-gulf-states-than-in-the-us-uk-and-canada-combined.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/more-indians-live-in-the-gulf-states-than-in-the-us-uk-and-canada-combined.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/more-indians-live-in-the-gulf-states-than-in-the-us-uk-and-canada-combined.jsonld"}}