前澳联储官员：人工智能投资热潮将继续推高澳大利亚通胀
2026年10月8日，澳大利亚储备银行前官员乔纳森·卡恩斯（Jonathan Kearns）在路透社全球市场论坛上表示，人工智能投资热潮短期内将继续推高澳大利亚通胀，因为生产率收益需要更长时间才能显现，央行难以对这部分价格压力视而不见。据路透社报道，卡恩斯现任Challenger首席经济学家。
卡恩斯估计，澳大利亚数据中心支出中约四分之三用于进口设备，这在一定程度上缓冲了通胀效应，但国内建设与配套支出仍会增加总需求。他指出，新技术投资的时间表与落地规模不确定性较高，使货币政策判断更加困难，并预计澳联储今年内还将再加息一次。
澳大利亚通胀近期再度加速：8月通胀在燃料价格上涨带动下走高，价格压力范围广泛。澳联储已于9月将现金利率上调至4.6%的15年高位，这是今年第四次加息；行长米歇尔·布洛克当时表示，人工智能热潮正在推高通胀。
卡恩斯认为，人工智能投资对高利率相对不敏感，企业会继续推进以抢占机会，因此紧缩货币政策的负担将更多落在家庭、汇率及非人工智能类企业投资上。他还表示，只有当企业超越日常事务自动化、重新设计工作流程后，人工智能对劳动力市场的广泛收益才会显现。
AI Boom to Fuel Australia Inflation Despite Higher Rates, Former RBA Official Says
Jonathan Kearns, a former Reserve Bank of Australia official, told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on 8 October 2026 that Australia's artificial intelligence investment boom is likely to keep pushing inflation higher in the near term, because productivity benefits will take longer to emerge and the central bank has limited scope to look through the price pressures. Kearns is now chief economist at Challenger.
Kearns estimated that imported equipment accounts for around three-quarters of data centre spending in Australia, which cushions some of the inflationary effect, but domestic spending will still add to aggregate demand. He said uncertainty over the timeline and scale of the new technology's investment makes the policy judgement harder, and he expects one more rate hike from the RBA this year.
Australian inflation accelerated in August as fuel costs surged and price pressures remained broad-based. In September the RBA raised its cash rate for the fourth time in 2026, to a 15-year high of 4.6 per cent, with Governor Michele Bullock saying the AI boom was boosting inflation.
Kearns said AI investment is likely to stay relatively resistant to higher interest rates as businesses press ahead to capture lucrative opportunities, so the burden of tighter policy will fall more heavily on households, the exchange rate and non-AI business investment. Broader labour-market gains from AI, he added, will appear once businesses move beyond routine tasks and fundamentally redesign workflows.
图片来源：超市货架（资料图）。摄影：Wilfredor，CC BY-SA 4.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
