←back to thread

The AI Investment Boom

(www.apricitas.io)
271 points m-hodges | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.033s | source
Show context
hn_throwaway_99 ◴[] No.41896346[source]
Reading this makes me willing to bet that this capital intensive investment boom will be similar to other enormous capital investment booms in US history, such as the laying of the railroads in the 1800s, the proliferation of car companies in the early 1900s, and the telecom fiber boom in the late 1900s. In all of these cases there was an enormous infrastructure (over) build out, followed by a crash where nearly all the companies in the industry ended up in bankruptcy, but then that original infrastructure build out had huge benefits for the economy and society as that infrastructure was "soaked up" in the subsequent years. E.g. think of all the telecom investment and subsequent bankruptcies in the late 90s/early 00s, but then all that dark fiber that was laid was eventually lit up and allowed for the explosion of high quality multimedia growth (e.g. Netflix and the like).

I think that will happen here. I think your average investor who's currently paying for all these advanced chips, data centers and energy supplies will walk away sorely disappointed, but this investment will yield huge dividends down the road. Heck, I think the energy investment alone will end up accelerating the switch away from fossil fuels, despite AI often being portrayed as a giant climate warming energy hog (which I'm not really disputing, but now that renewables are the cheapest form of energy, I believe this huge, well-funded demand will accelerate the growth of non-carbon energy sources).

replies(21): >>41896376 #>>41896426 #>>41896447 #>>41896726 #>>41898086 #>>41898206 #>>41898291 #>>41898436 #>>41898540 #>>41899659 #>>41900309 #>>41900633 #>>41903200 #>>41903363 #>>41903416 #>>41903838 #>>41903917 #>>41904566 #>>41905630 #>>41905809 #>>41906189 #
candiddevmike ◴[] No.41896376[source]
What will be the advantage of having a bunch of obsolete hardware? All I see is more e-waste.
replies(8): >>41896440 #>>41896450 #>>41896455 #>>41896456 #>>41896471 #>>41896532 #>>41896645 #>>41899790 #
almost_usual ◴[] No.41896456[source]
In the case of dark fiber the hardware was fine, wavelength division multiplexing was created which increased capacity by 100x in some cases crashing demand for new fiber.

I think OP is suggesting AI algorithms and training methods will be improve resulting in enormous performance gains with existing hardware causing a similar surplus of infrastructure and crash in demand.

replies(1): >>41896626 #
llamaimperative ◴[] No.41896626{3}[source]
How much of current venture spending is going into reusable R&D that can be moved forward in time the way that physical infrastructure in their examples were able to be used in the future?
replies(1): >>41900123 #
1. Eisenstein ◴[] No.41900123{4}[source]
Considering that models have been getting more powerful for the same number of parameters -- all of it.
replies(1): >>41903853 #
2. llamaimperative ◴[] No.41903853[source]
That... is not relevant. The question is what percentage of R&D spend gets "encoded" into something that can survive the dissolution of its holding company and how much does a transfer to a new owner depreciate it.

I'd be shocked if more than like 20% of the VC money going into it would come out the other side during such an event.