On 8 October 2026, the World Trade Organization (WTO) published the October update of its report "Global Trade Outlook and Statistics". Its forecast for world merchandise trade volume growth in 2026 rises to 3.9%, up from 1.9% in the March baseline scenario. The WTO then expects 4.1% in 2027, assuming an easing of the Middle East conflict. The press release gives two reasons: supply chains absorbed the shock of the Middle East conflict and investment in AI infrastructure. The report's analytical chapter measures the second. AI-related goods, such as semiconductors and servers, provided 47% of world merchandise trade growth in value in the first half of 2026. They account for only 14.8% of trade.

67% year-on-year value increase for AI-related goods

After a 10% decline in 2023, trade in these goods grew by 16% in 2024, 31% in 2025, then 67% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, while total merchandise trade gained 15% in value. Their share of world trade, stable between 7.1% in 2016 and 8% in 2023, has almost doubled. Before 2024, their contribution to growth remained marginal, including during the 2021 electronics rush.

Energy weighed in the opposite direction. According to the WTO, crude oil export volumes from the Middle East fell by about 24% year-on-year in the first half and liquefied natural gas volumes by nearly half, with other suppliers limiting the global decline to about 6% and 1%. Since the start of the year, the organization writes, the AI surge outweighs this drag.

A revised and narrowed list of customs codes

No customs code designates AI, the report recalls, describing it as a capability. It takes the definition from the World Trade Report 2025: raw materials, intermediate inputs and products that support the development and production of AI technologies. In 2025, the WTO proposed a list of 104 six-digit Harmonized System (HS6) codes. It revised it based on more recent work, including a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (Waugh, April 2026). The new list is "narrower" and excludes general-purpose goods and construction inputs that relate to AI only in the US context. Consulted on 9 October 2026, the 52-page report describes this method without reproducing the revised list of selected codes, so a reader cannot redo the 47% calculation from the document alone.

Part of the increase is due to prices

All figures in the chapter are in value terms, the WTO notes, and unit prices of accelerators and memory have risen sharply. It cites European Central Bank estimates that import prices of AI-related goods rose by about 10% year-on-year in 2025 and by 20 to 30% in the first half of 2026. In current dollars, world merchandise trade grew by 15% year-on-year in the first half, against 3.5% in volume, one of the largest gaps in recent years according to the report. The 3.9% forecast is for volumes, the 47% share for values.

Europe accounts for a third of world trade, a tenth of AI-related goods trade

In 2025, 40.4% of AI-related goods exports came from East Asia excluding China (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan in the report's definition), and 23.2% from Southeast Asia. The top ten players accounted for about 85% of exports and 80% of imports. In the first half of 2026, Taiwan is the top exporter with 14.7% of the total, narrowly ahead of China (14.3%). On the demand side, North America drives purchases. In the second quarter, it contributed 18.5 points to import growth of 70%.

In 2025, Europe represents 35.5% of world merchandise exports, but 10.6% of AI-related goods exports. On the import side, the proportion is 12.3% against 35.9%. In the second quarter of 2026, out of 80% growth in exports of these goods, it contributed 3.9 points, barely a twentieth (editor's calculation). Only the Netherlands appears among the top ten players. The report recalls that Europe nevertheless hosts one of the most critical nodes in the chain, ASML, sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, but that these upstream equipment weigh little in value compared with chips and servers. It also judges its data centre deployment modest relative to the size of its economy.

In volume terms, Asia would contribute 4.0 points of the 3.9 growth in merchandise trade in 2026, a contribution the WTO sees moderating in 2027 as AI-related trade slows. Europe would contribute 0.1, with exports down 0.1%, and the report describes its recent contributions to merchandise growth as "markedly weak". In services, by contrast, it would account for more than half of world export growth this year.

The risk named by the WTO: an investment pullback

A slowdown or reversal of AI investment spending "could also have a significant impact on trade, given their high import content", the WTO writes in its summary. The report details two channels: the import intensity of hardware and a wealth effect, as households are exposed to AI valuations through index funds. ActuIA detailed on 5 October how the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and AMRO describe the risk of an AI asset correction.

The assumptions for the future rest on market projections. Global AI infrastructure spending would increase by at least 30% in 2026, according to research firms cited in a footnote, and analysts expect a further 10 to 20% rise in AI capital expenditure in 2027. The United States accounts for between two-thirds and three-quarters of global spending.

Europe, customer of a supply concentrated in Asia

The report describes a recovery in merchandise trade where nearly half of value growth depends on AI-related goods. Investment spending is concentrated in the United States; Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and South Korea together account for more than half of exports of these goods. For computing and infrastructure equipment alone, Europe represents 22.9% of world imports in 2025, behind the United States (32.9%), and 15.9% of exports. East and Southeast Asia, including China, account for 63.8% of world exports of this equipment (editor's calculation from chart 28). These shares describe world trade, without directly measuring European purchases from Asian suppliers. The WTO does not quantify European exposure to an investment pullback.

Taiwan, top exporter of AI-related goods in the first half of 2026, announced on 8 October, via its Ministry of Finance, record exports of 87.22 billion dollars in September, all merchandise combined, up 60.9% year-on-year. Over the whole third quarter, they rose 44.6% year-on-year.

Our articles will then appear first in Google Top Stories.