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Is AI an Investment Bubble? Can the $45 Billion Industry Earn the $2 Trillion It Needs to Justify Investment? 95% of Companies See No Return on AI Investments? Lots of Debt & Chips ONLY Last 3-5 Years episode artwork

EPISODE · Oct 7, 2025 · 30 MIN

Is AI an Investment Bubble? Can the $45 Billion Industry Earn the $2 Trillion It Needs to Justify Investment? 95% of Companies See No Return on AI Investments? Lots of Debt & Chips ONLY Last 3-5 Years

from The Best Paragraph I've Read... · host Zac & Don

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "The windswept town of Ellendale, N.D., population 1,100, has two motels, a Dollar General, a Pentecostal Bible college—and a half-built AI factory bigger than 10 Home Depots. Its more than $15 billion price tag is equivalent to a quarter of the state’s annual economic output. The artificial-intelligence boom has ushered in one of the costliest building sprees in world history. Over the past three years, leading tech firms have committed more toward AIdata centers like the one in Ellendale, plus chips and energy, than it cost to build the interstate highway system over four decades, when adjusted for inflation. AI proponents liken the effort to the Industrial Revolution. A big problem: No one is sure how they will get their investment back—or when. " This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Spending on AI Is at Epic Levels. Will It Ever Pay Off?" The authors are Eliot Brown & Robbie Whelan. You can read the full article here. Zac & Don discuss the data that suggests maybe we are living in an AI bubble. They wonder if AI can generate the two trillion dollars in revenue it will need to pay for itself. They wonder if most people are happy to just use the free version. They also discuss this bubble prediction with the optimistic positive growth story they discussed a few weeks ago. Zac & Don also discussed this article from the Economist on China's AI strategy. You can read that here.

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Is AI an Investment Bubble? Can the $45 Billion Industry Earn the $2 Trillion It Needs to Justify Investment? 95% of Companies See No Return on AI Investments? Lots of Debt & Chips ONLY Last 3-5 Years

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