←back to thread

The AI Investment Boom

(www.apricitas.io)
271 points m-hodges | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.206s | 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 #
jordanb ◴[] No.41906189[source]
The only asset from the telcom bubble that was still valuable was fiber in the ground. All the endpoints were obsolete and had to be replaced within a few years. The fiber could be reused and installing it was expensive, so that was the main asset.

What asset from the AI bubble will still be valuable 5 years later? Probably not any warehouses full of 5 year old GPUs. Maybe nuclear power plants?

replies(1): >>41911471 #
1. RF_Savage ◴[] No.41911471[source]
I doubt they will manage to do a significant nuclear buildout in mere five years. But future renevables will potentially benefit from the stronger grid.