The interesting question is no longer whether AI is a bubble. Almost everyone now says yes, Altman and Bezos included. The fight is what kind: an industrial bubble that overbuilds and leaves cheap capacity behind, like the dark fiber of the 1990s, or a financial one that takes savers down with it.
Both sides read the same numbers. What would actually settle it:
- Whether revenue from real, outside customers catches the capex, or the money just keeps circling between Nvidia, OpenAI, and the clouds
- Whether the chips hold their value long enough to justify the depreciation, or the write-downs come
- Whether cheaper intelligence expands demand, or customers ration once the meter runs
Who benefits, who carries the risk, who gets to leave. The hyperscalers can eat a write-down. The pension fund quietly long the whole cohort cannot.
