Bubble or boom, AI keeps attracting multi‑billion‑dollar capital

Big Tech and its upstart partners are plowing tens of billions into artificial intelligence infrastructure despite mounting warnings of an overheating market. OpenAI, still unprofitable, struck a multiyear, multibillion-dollar pact with AMD for next-gen GPUs and secured a path to buy up to 10% of the chipmaker, even as Nvidia readies a $100 billion commitment to the AI lab. Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft continue a spending spree on data centers, while Oracle is earmarking $40 billion for Nvidia hardware tied to OpenAI’s “Project Stargate,” underscoring a scramble for compute. The outlays come as valuations soar—Nvidia above $4.5 trillion, OpenAI at $500 billion, and Microsoft and Google topping $3 trillion—reviving dot-com-era comparisons. Some investors, including Jeff Bezos, see bubble dynamics but expect durable winners to emerge. Long-term demand looks solid, said a Santa Clara University professor, though an interim period of overbuild and slower-than-expected monetization could test nerves.

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