The United States is mobilizing capital at an unprecedented scale, deeply intertwining the AI race with the fate of dollar hegemony. The logic behind this bold gamble is clear and aggressive: channel funds into AI infrastructure through a fully open capital market, leverage blockchain technology to enhance the global accessibility of dollar assets, and then use AI leadership to reinforce the dollar's status. Yet, the inherent fragility of this model is equally evident—the dollar is increasingly resembling a high-risk stock rather than a traditional safe-haven asset.

According to a foreign exchange special report released by Deutsche Bank on September 3, U.S. companies are expected to invest approximately $800 billion in AI capital expenditure this year. AI venture capital fundraising has already surpassed $400 billion in 2024, with the two largest AI labs alone raising nearly $217 billion combined, both valued at close to $1 trillion. Concurrently, hyperscale tech firms—including Google, Meta, Amazon, and Oracle—have raised funds through the investment-grade credit market this year at levels approximately ten times their average annual volume from 2020 to 2024.

This massive capital mobilization has directly transmitted risk to the dollar's structural stability. As America's funding sources shift from official long-term capital to private short-term tech capital, the dollar's correlation with the stock market is rising, and its traditional role as a risk hedge is weakening. If the AI business model proves unsustainable, or if the U.S. falls behind in the AI race, the dollar will face severe downward pressure.

Capital Floodgates Open: Three Funding Channels Simultaneously Unlocked

The U.S. is simultaneously raising massive funds through three channels: private equity, public debt, and public stock markets.

In the private market, AI venture capital fundraising has exceeded $400 billion this year, with over 90% of the largest deals concentrated in the U.S., growing at triple the year-on-year rate of last year. In the debt market, hyperscale tech companies have been forced to pivot toward bond financing on a historic scale—Google, Meta, Oracle, and Amazon have raised roughly ten times their 2020–2024 annual average through the investment-grade credit market this year. In the public stock market, Google completed its first follow-on share offering since its 2004 IPO in June 2026, raising $85 billion, while SpaceX executed the largest new stock listing ever, with a market valuation near $2 trillion.

Behind this wave of financing lies America's widening twin deficit—the fiscal deficit exceeding 6% of GDP and the current account deficit nearing 4% of GDP. In the absence of domestic fiscal savings, the incremental demand for AI capital spending must be filled by foreign funds. Deutsche Bank data shows that in Q2 2026, the U.S. attracted over $400 billion in foreign equity capital in a single quarter, far exceeding any historical quarterly level and significantly surpassing debt inflows, which had long been the primary source of U.S. capital account financing.

Notably, foreign official sectors' long-term appetite for U.S. Treasury bonds has declined due to geopolitical fissures, but the appeal of tech assets is being filled through private channels, such as retail investors. SpaceX reportedly reserved approximately 30% of its IPO shares for retail investors—more than triple the traditional IPO ratio—reflecting American companies' clear awareness of the financing structure shift.

Asset Tokenization: The Next Technological Pillar for Dollar Hegemony

Alongside massive fundraising, the U.S. is deploying blockchain technology as an infrastructure to attract global capital, pushing asset tokenization from concept to reality.

Asset tokenization converts ownership of financial assets—such as stocks, bonds, and real estate—into digital tokens recorded on a blockchain. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which currently holds custody of approximately $115 trillion in U.S. assets, completed the tokenization of an initial batch of assets in July 2026 and used them in live transactions, with 40 financial institutions participating. This includes tokenization tests of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) and a test by JPMorgan using tokenized assets to meet CME margin requirements. DTCC plans to officially launch its tokenization service in October 2026.

On the regulatory front, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a "no-action" letter to DTCC in December 2025, confirming that the same security can trade simultaneously on traditional and on-chain tracks with identical investor protections and ownership rights. A subsequent ruling in January 2026 further clarified that the format or custody method of a security does not affect the applicability of federal securities law. This provides full regulatory backing for tokenization.

On the exchange level, the New York Stock Exchange is developing a new digital platform in partnership with Securitize, aiming to achieve 24/7 trading, instant settlement, fractional share trading, and stablecoin settlement. Nasdaq has announced its "equity token design," planning to achieve full tokenization capability by 2027 and has already declared plans to launch 23/5 trading by the end of 2025.

Deutsche Bank argues that tokenization holds strategic significance for the dollar in two ways: on one hand, tokenized assets offer higher collateral liquidity, improving capital efficiency and enhancing the attractiveness of U.S. assets to global investors; on the other hand, if U.S. stocks and bonds achieve 24/7 instant settlement, it would significantly lower the entry barrier for global retail investors, further expanding the demand base for dollar assets. The case of South Korea provides a reference—despite comprising only 2% of global nominal GDP, South Korea contributed roughly 10% of the $740 billion in foreign capital flowing into U.S. equities last year, partly due to its early adoption of fractional trading in foreign stocks.

Currently, the global scale of tokenized real-world assets stands at approximately $40 billion, a fraction of the over $100 trillion in U.S. assets, leaving vast room for growth. Market projections suggest tokenized assets could reach between $2 trillion and $30 trillion by the 2030s.

The Dollar's New Risk Profile: From Safe Haven to AI Bet

This dual gamble of capital and technology is reshaping the dollar's risk characteristics.

Deutsche Bank notes that the U.S. is undergoing a fundamental shift in its financing structure: from official-sector-dominated, long-term, geopolitically driven capital inflows to private-sector-dominated, short-term, tech-return-driven inflows. This shift has significantly increased the dollar's correlation with the stock market, weakening its historical function as a hedge against equity risk.

This logic implies that the dollar's fate is now deeply tied to the outcome of the AI race. If AI capital expenditures ultimately prove uneconomical, or if the U.S. loses its technological lead, a large-scale exodus of private capital would deal a direct blow to the dollar.

Meanwhile, tokenization lowers the friction for capital outflows just as much as it lowers the barrier for inflows. Enhanced capital liquidity is a double-edged sword—it accelerates capital inflows during tailwinds but equally accelerates outflows during headwinds.

From a broader perspective, Deutsche Bank believes the U.S. is competing in the AI race with an "open market + closed technology" model: attracting global capital through fully open capital markets while keeping AI model weights closed to preserve corporate pricing power and shareholder returns. The core premise of this model is that U.S. AI companies can sustain their technological lead and convert it into sustainable profitability.

Capitalism Itself Faces a Stress Test

Deutsche Bank raises a deeper proposition in its report: the AI race is not just a technological contest but a battle of economic models, and the U.S. shareholder capitalism model itself is facing a stress test.

The internal logic of the American model is: open capital markets attract global capital → massive capital investment drives technological innovation → technological leadership sustains corporate pricing power → high profit returns attract more capital inflows. The sustainability of this positive loop depends on AI companies' ability to charge high subscription fees to global users and monetize intellectual property in international markets.

However, this loop has clear vulnerabilities. If AI business models fail to generate sufficient economic returns, or if the pricing power of U.S. companies is eroded, corporate profits will come under pressure, undermining the core logic that attracts foreign capital and exacerbating already elevated fiscal deficit pressures.

Deutsche Bank also notes that AI revenue streams could improve the U.S. current account by approximately 1 percentage point over the next decade through boosted service exports, but this outlook is highly dependent on U.S. AI companies maintaining pricing power and successfully monetizing their international user base.

The report ultimately frames this contest as the ultimate test of the core American belief that "free and open capital markets always foster optimal innovation." The outcome of the AI race will, to a significant degree, determine whether this creed still holds, and whether the dollar's position as the global capital hub can endure.