• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

A.I. Bubble Bust Theories

As the major A.I. hyperscalers prepare to spend some $325 billion in capex this year—enough to noticeably raise U.S. G.D.P.—economists are beginning to worry we’re in a bubble… even as they acknowledge there may not be any real alternative.

Global Switch Docklands data centers london
On some level, it seems obvious that we’ve entered an A.I. bubble: Yes, The Four are going to be fine and make more money than ever, but others won’t be as lucky in this Manichean, winners-take-most economy. Photo: Jason Alden/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Ian Krietzberg
August 5, 2025

Join Puck to listen to this article

The quest for scale remains a preoccupation at almost every level of the A.I. pipeline: There’s the mind-boggling amount of training data required; the alarming quantity of water and electricity needed to run data centers; and the millions of G.P.U. chips that provide the necessary computing power. Then there are the extraordinary public market valuations for many of the largest A.I. players, which have buoyed the stock market for the past two years.