The AI Bubble Is Getting Closer to Popping
Fewer workers=fewer, and more expensive, data centers.
Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg/Getty Images
AI is driving the S&P 500 index and the broader US economy forward. The CEOs of a handful of few dominant firms have become celebrities, with groupies and markets alike hanging on their words and earnings reports. The line between hype and reality has blurred. But what may burst the AI bubble are not the flagged worries over circular financing, growing debt or Chinese competition. Instead, the unanticipated drag of tariffs and fall in the number of migrants in the US may be what brings these AI champions back down to earth.
President Trump has promised to do “whatever it takes” to lead the world in AI, mobilizing the federal government and pulling its industrial policy levers. His administration is opening up federal lands for data centers and power plants and fast-tracking permitting and environmental reviews. It has taken equity stakes in the chip giant Intel Corp. and the start-up lithography equipment maker x-Light Inc., as well as in critical minerals firms for the raw materials that go into the electronics at the heart of the sector. It is taking on state-level AI regulations and laws, using executive authority to clear away regulations and oversight. And his administration has exempted servers, semiconductors, circuit boards and many of the other electronics that make up roughly a third of data center costs from tariffs (though they still pay the levies on imported building materials).