What the index measures. The estimated cost of AI agents finding information by reading whole files rather than retrieving the passage they need, priced from public model prices and measured ratios, with every parameter on the page. Official series from the Treasury, USAspending and the Census Bureau are reproduced for scale and are not attributed to that cost.
Why it matters. On one production codebase, an agent read 16 to 47 times less per answer when a local index answered first; on published coding tasks, 2.7 times fewer tokens end to end. Worldwide AI spending is forecast at $2.59 trillion in 2026, up 47 %. The habit scales with the spend.
Figures that may be quoted, with attribution to the AI Burn Clock and the underlying source
US total public debt: $40.095T (Treasury, Debt to the Penny).
Federal contracts naming AI, FY2026 to date: $427.8M; FY2025: $615.5M (USAspending.gov; filter on the technical note). Every state has a release page, for example aiburnclock.org/state/tx/.
Reference estimate, team of 50 developers: shown live in the Summary of the national release, with the parameters beside it.
Since the previous release
First release of this series; the change line begins with the next one.
Story starters, one per state
Each line is a checkable sentence with its release page. Rankings and shares are recomputed daily.
Virginia: $128.0M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 1 of 51, 30.0 % of the US total, $14.53 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $32.5B (Census). Release
Maryland: $71.6M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 2 of 51, 16.8 % of the US total, $11.43 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $25.4B (Census). Release
District of Columbia: $43.1M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 3 of 51, 10.1 % of the US total, $61.38 per resident. Release
California: $33.6M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 4 of 51, 7.9 % of the US total, $0.85 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $162.0B (Census). Release
Ohio: $22.1M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 5 of 51, 5.2 % of the US total, $1.86 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $31.1B (Census). Release
Texas: $15.8M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 6 of 51, 3.7 % of the US total, $0.50 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $65.9B (Census). Release
Alabama: $14.5M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 7 of 51, 3.4 % of the US total, $2.81 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $6.2B (Census). Release
Massachusetts: $14.1M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 8 of 51, 3.3 % of the US total, $1.98 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $68.3B (Census). Release
New York: $11.6M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 9 of 51, 2.7 % of the US total, $0.58 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $128.6B (Census). Release
Nevada: $9.7M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 10 of 51, 2.3 % of the US total, $2.95 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $3.1B (Census). Release
North Carolina: $9.0M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 11 of 51, 2.1 % of the US total, $0.81 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $12.8B (Census). Release
Colorado: $7.7M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 12 of 51, 1.8 % of the US total, $1.30 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $21.8B (Census). Release
Georgia: $7.1M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 13 of 51, 1.7 % of the US total, $0.64 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $14.5B (Census). Release
New Jersey: $6.8M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 14 of 51, 1.6 % of the US total, $0.72 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $58.7B (Census). Release
West Virginia: $5.6M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 15 of 51, 1.3 % of the US total, $3.15 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $20.2B (Census). Release
Alaska: $5.3M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 16 of 51, 1.2 % of the US total, $7.15 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $5.6B (Census). Release
Pennsylvania: $4.0M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 17 of 51, 0.9 % of the US total, $0.31 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $47.7B (Census). Release
Michigan: $3.0M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 18 of 51, 0.7 % of the US total, $0.30 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $26.7B (Census). Release
Florida: $2.8M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 19 of 51, 0.7 % of the US total, $0.12 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $21.8B (Census). Release
Iowa: $2.3M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 20 of 51, 0.5 % of the US total, $0.71 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $6.6B (Census). Release
Utah: $2.1M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 21 of 51, 0.5 % of the US total, $0.60 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $6.7B (Census). Release
South Carolina: $2.0M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 22 of 51, 0.5 % of the US total, $0.37 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $15.0B (Census). Release
New Hampshire: $1.7M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 23 of 51, 0.4 % of the US total, $1.22 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $7.5B (Census). Release
New Mexico: $1.1M in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 24 of 51, 0.3 % of the US total, $0.53 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $7.0B (Census). Release
Oregon: $620.2K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 25 of 51, 0.1 % of the US total, $0.15 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $15.8B (Census). Release
Oklahoma: $484.0K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 26 of 51, 0.1 % of the US total, $0.12 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $10.3B (Census). Release
Mississippi: $356.6K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 27 of 51, 0.1 % of the US total, $0.12 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $7.5B (Census). Release
Arizona: $209.4K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 28 of 51, 0.0 % of the US total, $0.03 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $6.6B (Census). Release
South Dakota: $181.8K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 29 of 51, 0.0 % of the US total, $0.20 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $4.1B (Census). Release
Vermont: $140.0K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 30 of 51, 0.0 % of the US total, $0.22 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $2.6B (Census). Release
Kentucky: $50.2K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 31 of 51, 0.0 % of the US total, $0.01 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $10.2B (Census). Release
Tennessee: $27.7K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 32 of 51, 0.0 % of the US total, $0.00 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $8.0B (Census). Release
Washington: $19.3K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 33 of 51, 0.0 % of the US total, $0.00 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $24.5B (Census). Release
North Dakota: $18.0K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 34 of 51, 0.0 % of the US total, $0.02 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $4.2B (Census). Release
Wyoming: $14.4K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 35 of 51, 0.0 % of the US total, $0.02 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $1.3B (Census). Release
Connecticut: $2.5K in federal contracts naming AI performed in the state this fiscal year, ranked 36 of 51, 0.0 % of the US total, $0.00 per resident; state debt at end of FY2023 $32.5B (Census). Release
Machine-readable release: /data.json, refreshed daily at 00:00 UTC. Pipeline and templates: GitHub.
Boilerplate: About XERJ
XERJ is an open-source local search engine for AI agents: one Rust binary, Elasticsearch-compatible on port 9200, that indexes any folder so an agent retrieves the passage it needs instead of reading whole files. Apache-2.0. Source: github.com/xerj-org/xerj. Documentation: xerj.org. The AI Burn Clock is maintained by the XERJ community and names XERJ as the implementation it measured; any index that returns passages instead of files produces the same effect.
Statement
"An agent that reads a whole file to find one function is not thinking. It is paying. The index shows the bill, the sources, and the controls. Move a control and argue with a factor, not with us."
Attribution: Serhii Nikolaichuk, maintainer of the AI Burn Clock; co-author of an IETF draft on attestation results.