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2026-04-22 19:38:16

How Much U.S. Population Growth Comes From Immigration

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Immigration is now the primary engine of U.S. population growth, and in some places, the only one.

From 2021 to 2025, over four out of every five new U.S. residents came from international migration, according to data from the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. In 14 states, immigration accounted for 100% of population gains, meaning growth would have been negative without it.

This map shows how much each state relies on immigration, revealing a divide between states gaining residents organically and those sustained almost entirely by global inflows.

Where Immigration Is the Only Source of Growth

In many states, population growth depends entirely on immigration.

This table shows immigration’s share of population change by state from 2021–2025. If immigration exceeds total population growth, the share is capped at 100%:

Florida and Texas led the nation in population growth, but for different reasons. Both gained more than one million international migrants between 2021 and 2025.

But their growth drivers differ. Florida combined strong immigration with large domestic inflows, despite negative natural change. Texas saw growth across all fronts, including a strong natural increase.

This contrast highlights a broader trend. While every state recorded net international migration during this period, many also faced domestic outflows or aging populations. In fact, 25 states saw net domestic outflows, while 21 recorded more deaths than births, making immigration the decisive factor separating growth from decline.

Texas added over 691,000 people through natural growth alone, more than California and New York combined.

When Growth Isn’t Enough: The California Example

California highlights the imbalance: despite nearly one million international arrivals and more births than deaths, the state still saw overall population decline driven by domestic outflows.

Seven states in total lost population over this period, underscoring how internal migration can outweigh both natural change and immigration.

The Future of Immigration and U.S. Population Growth

A sharp slowdown could reshape this map.

In 2026, U.S. immigration is expected to fall to 321,000, less than a fifth of the level seen in 2025. At the same time, natural population change is projected to remain flat.

For states highly dependent on immigration, this may mean slower growth or even population decline.

Over the past five years, six states, including Oregon and Michigan, experienced both domestic outmigration and negative natural change, leaving immigration as their primary source of growth.

States where immigration plays the largest role in population gains are also the most exposed to a slowdown, with potential ripple effects across:

• Tax receipts
• Consumer spending
• Housing demand
• Labor force growth

As natural growth fades, migration, both domestic and international, will determine which states continue to grow and which begin to fall behind.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on America’s fastest-growing states from 2025 to 2050.

2026-04-22 01:48:00

Ranked: Education Spending Per Student by Country

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Education spending per student varies widely across countries, reflecting differences in national priorities and resources.

At the top of the ranking, Luxembourg stands alone, spending far more per student than any other country. Beyond this upper tier, spending levels diverge quickly across both advanced and emerging economies.

This chart ranks countries by annual education spending per student, using PPP-adjusted data from the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2025.

These differences influence everything from class sizes and teacher pay to access to technology and higher education outcomes.

Top Spenders Cluster in Europe and North America

Luxembourg stands far above all peers, spending over $31,000 per student, nearly $9,000 more than second-place Norway and several times higher than lower-ranked countries. The country also leads in teacher salaries.

Rank	Country	Expenditure per student (in USD PPP)
1	Luxembourg	31,439
2	Norway	22,558
3	Austria	20,942
4	United States	20,387
5	South Korea	19,805
6	Denmark	19,229
7	Netherlands	19,186
8	United Kingdom	19,072
9	Belgium	19,024
10	Canada	18,733
11	Iceland	18,707
12	Germany	17,960
13	Sweden	17,804
14	Australia	17,529
15	Ireland	15,915
16	France	15,427
17	OECD average	15,023
18	Finland	15,000
19	Slovenia	14,454
20	Japan	14,130
21	Italy	13,750
22	Spain	13,385
23	Portugal	12,956
24	Israel	12,877
25	Czechia	12,844
26	New Zealand	12,389
27	Estonia	12,362
28	Poland	11,488
29	Lithuania	11,313
30	Slovakia	11,259
31	Hungary	10,097
32	Latvia	9,204
33	Croatia	9,033
34	Bulgaria	8,703
35	Chile	8,068
36	Romania	7,221
37	Greece	7,137
38	Türkiye	5,305
39	China	5,161
40	South Africa	4,395
41	Mexico	4,066
42	Peru	2,612
--	OECD Average	15,022

The U.S. and several Western European countries also rank near the top, typically spending between $18,000 and $21,000. These high levels reflect both strong public funding and the higher costs of education systems.

Canada and the United Kingdom also fall within this upper tier, underscoring consistent investment across advanced economies.

OECD Average Masks Wide Gaps

While the OECD average is about $15,000 per student, most countries fall far from this midpoint, clustering either well above it in Western Europe and North America or far below it in emerging economies.

Countries like Japan, Italy, and Spain fall below the average despite being advanced economies. Meanwhile, emerging European economies such as Poland and Hungary spend closer to $10,000–$11,000.

Spending Drops Sharply Outside Advanced Economies

Outside the OECD’s highest spenders, education investment drops off rapidly.

Türkiye and China spend just over $5,000 per student, while Mexico and South Africa are closer to $4,000. Peru sits at the bottom of the ranking at roughly $2,600 per student.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Comparing Education Levels Across 45 Countries on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

2026-04-22 00:28:26

Charted: Compute Costs More Than Talent in AI

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For leading AI companies, the biggest expense is not talent. It is compute.

This chart from Visual Capitalist’s AI Week, sponsored by Terzo, uses Epoch AI data to compare spending at Anthropic, Minimax, and Z.ai across R&D compute, inference compute, and staff plus other costs.

In every case, compute accounts for the majority of total spending, underscoring how capital-intensive it has become to build and serve frontier AI models.

How AI Company Costs Break Down

Despite differences in scale, all three companies allocate the largest share of their budgets to a single category: compute.

The data below compares spending composition across Anthropic, Minimax, and Z.ai. Anthropic’s figures are for 2025, while Minimax’s are from Q1 to Q3 of 2025 and Z.ai’s are for H1 2025.

Across all three AI companies, compute is the main cost center. Epoch AI estimates that R&D compute and inference compute together account for 57% to 70% of total spending, making infrastructure more expensive than staff and other costs in every case.

Among the three, Z.ai has the most R&D-heavy profile, with 58% of spending tied to compute powering model development and training.

Anthropic stands out for sheer scale. Epoch AI estimates the company spent $9.7 billion in 2025, including $6.8 billion on compute alone across training and inference.

Its costs are significantly higher than Minimax’s and Z.ai’s, even if the two Chinese AI companies’ figures were annualized to match Anthropic’s full-year period.

Both Chinese companies release many of their models as open source, meaning the model weights are freely available for anyone to download, modify, and run. This strategy helps them compete with better-funded U.S. labs by building developer adoption at a fraction of the cost.

AI Talent Costs Less Than Chips and Compute

One of the clearest takeaways is that talent costs less than compute in this comparison. Even though top AI labs pay some of the highest salaries in tech, staff and other costs still account for less than half of total spending at each of the three firms.

While the chart focuses on costs, Epoch AI estimates these labs are currently spending around 2–3x more than they generate in revenue, even as some expect economics to improve over time.

How These Estimates Were Built

This dataset comes with a few important caveats. Anthropic’s figures are based on reporting from The Information and are more speculative, while Minimax and Z.ai figures come from IPO filings released in January 2026.

The time periods also differ: Anthropic data is for the full year of 2025, Minimax covers 2025 Q1–Q3, and Z.ai covers 2025 H1. Epoch AI says its expense totals include operating expenses, cost of goods and services, and non-cash items such as stock-based compensation.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Soaring Revenues of AI Companies on Voronoi.

2026-04-21 22:19:12

Mapped: AI Adoption Across Europe

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Artificial intelligence is spreading quickly across Europe, but adoption is not happening evenly. A clear divide is emerging between countries where AI is becoming mainstream and those where usage remains relatively low.

This map from Visual Capitalist’s AI Week, sponsored by Terzo, shows the share of people in each European country who used AI in the last three months, based on data from Eurostat and IAB UK.

AI Usage Across Europe

Since the rollout of consumer AI tools in late 2022, Europe has begun to split into clear adoption tiers. Northern European countries dominate the top of the ranking, while several of the continent’s largest economies sit much lower.

The table below shows the share of people in each country who report using AI tools within the last three months.

Rank	Country	Individuals using AI tools (%)
1	Norway	56.3
2	Denmark	48.4
3	Switzerland	47.0
4	Estonia	46.6
5	Malta	46.5
6	Finland	46.3
7	Ireland	44.9
8	Netherlands	44.7
9	Cyprus	44.2
10	Greece	44.1
11	Luxembourg	42.5
12	Belgium	42.0
13	Sweden	42.0
14	Austria	39.4
15	Portugal	38.7
16	Spain	37.9
17	Slovenia	37.6
18	France	37.5
19	Lithuania	36.9
20	Czechia	35.4
21	UK	34.3
22	Latvia	33.4
23	EU	32.7
24	Germany	32.3
25	Slovakia	30.8
26	Hungary	29.6
27	Croatia	27.5
28	Poland	22.7
29	Bulgaria	22.5
30	North Macedonia	22.0
31	Bosnia & Herzegovina	20.3
32	Italy	19.9
33	Turkey	18.6
34	Romania	17.8

Eurostat data shows Northern Europe leading the way. Norway ranks first at (56%), followed by Denmark at 48% and Finland at 46%, suggesting AI has already entered the mainstream for a large share of people in these countries.

At the other end of the spectrum, adoption remains far lower in parts of southeastern Europe. Romania ranks last, with fewer than one in five people reporting recent AI use

Mixed Results in the Mediterranean

Across Southern Europe, results varied immensely, with Italy (20%) and even Turkey (19%) seeing less than half the usage reported by their counterparts in Cyprus or Greece (both 44%), to say nothing of Malta (47%).

Meanwhile, the Iberian countries, Spain (38%) and Portugal (39%), reported mid-range figures in line with those seen in Western European peers like France and the United Kingdom.

The high gaps in AI usage across the Mediterranean appears to cut across economic or developmental divides.

Young People Leading the Way

Younger people appear to be accelerating adoption further. In the UK, for example, overall recent AI use stands at 34%, but among those aged 15-24, 24% report using these tools daily.

That points to a second divide beneath the country-level map: even where national adoption looks moderate, AI may already be deeply embedded among younger users in school and early-career workplaces.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out ChatGPT the Only Constant in an Evolving AI Landscape on Voronoi.

2026-04-21 19:58:39

Central Banks Buying and Selling Gold in 2026

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Central banks are taking diverging paths on gold in 2026.

While countries like Poland, Uzbekistan, and China are adding to their reserves, others, including Russia and Turkey, are selling to manage economic pressures. The split highlights gold’s dual role as both a geopolitical hedge and a source of liquidity.

This chart shows net changes in central bank gold reserves by country so far as of end of February, based on data from the World Gold Council.

Poland Leads Global Gold Buying in 2026

Poland is leading global gold accumulation in 2026, adding over 20 tonnes, more than any other central bank so far this year. This purchase is part of a broader multi-year plan to reach 700 tonnes, reflecting heightened security concerns on NATO’s eastern flank.

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan follow closely behind, continuing a steady trend of gold accumulation among Central Asian economies.

Country	Net Change in 2026 (Tonnes of Gold)
Poland	20.23
Uzbekistan	16.48
Kazakhstan	6.51
Malaysia	4.98
Czechia	3.36
China	2.18
Cambodia	1.69
Indonesia	1.51
Serbia	0.99
Philippines	0.46
El Salvador	0.29
Singapore	0.20
Malta	0.12
Mongolia	0.08
Egypt	0.06
Qatar	0.02
Mexico	-0.02
Belarus	-0.05
Kyrgyzstan	-1.07
Bulgaria	-1.88
Turkey	-8.08
Russia	-15.55

Diversification Away From Dollar Reserves

The freezing of roughly $300 billion in Russian central bank assets in 2022 marked a turning point for global reserve management.

In response, countries like China and several Central Asian economies have accelerated gold purchases, treating bullion as a reserve asset that sits outside the reach of foreign governments. Unlike foreign currency reserves, gold is not subject to foreign jurisdiction, making it attractive in a fragmented geopolitical landscape. Smaller buyers, such as Cambodia and Serbia, are also gradually increasing their allocations.

Why Russia and Turkey Are Selling Gold

On the other side of the ledger, Russia and Turkey are the largest net sellers of gold in 2026.

Russia’s gold sales point to mounting fiscal strain, as wartime spending and sanctions pressure government finances.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s reduction is driven by domestic policy, including efforts to stabilize the lira and manage local gold demand.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Mapped: Which Countries Hold the Most Gold Reserves? on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

2026-04-21 12:41:09

Ranked: The EU’s Richest Regions

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Ireland and Luxembourg dominate the top of this ranking, but some of the most surprising entries come from Central and Eastern Europe, where capital regions rival Western Europe’s wealthiest hubs.

Using data from Eurostat and visualized by DataPulse, this graphic ranks EU regions by GDP per capita in purchasing power standards (PPS), which adjusts for cost-of-living differences across countries.

The EU’s Top 30 Regions by GDP per Capita

The table below shows the EU’s top-performing regions by GDP per capita, measured in purchasing power standards (PPS):

Rank	Region	Country	GDP per Capita (€)	% of EU Avg
1	Eastern and Midland	Ireland	107,200	268
2	Luxembourg	Luxembourg	97,700	245
3	Southern	Ireland	86,500	217
4	Hamburg	Germany	78,300	196
5	Prague	Czech Republic	76,600	192
6	Brussels	Belgium	76,000	190
7	Bucharest - Ilfov	Romania	75,000	188
8	Capital Region of Denmark	Denmark	70,100	175
9	North Holland	Netherlands	69,900	175
10	Upper Bavaria	Germany	67,700	170
11	Budapest	Hungary	67,200	168
12	Utrecht	Netherlands	64,900	162
13	Bolzano - South Tyrol	Italy	64,200	161
14	Île-de-France	France	64,000	160
15	Warsaw	Poland	62,800	157
16	Walloon Brabant	Belgium	61,900	155
17	Stuttgart (district)	Germany	61,300	153
18	Stockholm	Sweden	61,100	153
19	Bratislava Region	Slovakia	61,000	153
20	Darmstadt (district)	Germany	59,200	148
21	Salzburg	Austria	58,100	146
22	North Brabant	Netherlands	55,400	139
23	Vienna	Austria	54,600	137
24	Antwerp	Belgium	54,100	135
25	Sostinės regionas	Lithuania	53,000	133
26	Bremen (state) Bremen	Germany	52,700	132
27	Lombardy	Italy	52,700	132
28	Zagreb	Croatia	52,500	131
29	Lower Saxony Braunschweig	Germany	51,500	129
30	South Holland	Netherlands	51,500	129
--	Average	European Union	40,000	100

The top of the ranking is dominated by two familiar outliers: Ireland and Luxembourg.

Eastern and Midland (Ireland) leads the EU by a wide margin, while Southern Ireland and Luxembourg also rank far above the regional average. Notably, several Central and Eastern European capitals rank ahead of regions in much larger Western economies.

Why Ireland and Luxembourg Stand Out

At first glance, Ireland and Luxembourg appear to be runaway leaders. But part of that strength reflects the way multinational firms book profits in these economies.

In Ireland especially, the presence of major foreign companies can push GDP per capita far above what domestic consumption or household income alone would suggest. Economists often describe this gap as GDP distortion, where globally generated profits are recorded locally.

The Power of Capital Regions

Many of Europe’s wealthiest regions are centered around capital cities or major economic hubs. Prague, Brussels, Paris (Île-de-France), and Copenhagen all rank highly due to:

• Concentration of government institutions
• High-value service industries
• Corporate headquarters and financial activity

These regions act as economic engines, attracting talent, investment, and infrastructure that boost productivity and output per person.

Eastern Europe’s Surprising Entries

Notably, Bucharest-Ilfov (Romania) and Budapest (Hungary) rank among the EU’s top regions, despite their countries having lower overall GDP per capita.

This creates a striking contrast: cities like Bucharest and Budapest rank among the EU’s richest regions, even though their countries rank much lower overall. Economic activity is concentrated in these capital hubs, where multinational firms and high-value services drive productivity well above national averages.

The broader takeaway is that national averages can hide where economic power is really concentrated. Across the EU, a relatively small group of capital cities, financial centers, and multinational hubs account for an outsized share of regional wealth.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

For more insights on Europe’s wealth distribution, check out Europe’s Richest Countries on the Voronoi app.