The bill for the AI feast
Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes says the AI build-out looks less like a gold rush and more like a very expensive game of musical chairs. His argument: the industry is pouring multi-trillion-dollar sums into data centers, chips, and power capacity now, but the real reckoning may only show up later, when all that fresh capacity actually lands.
The awkward question: who pays?
The timing matters. Hayes points to late 2027 or 2028 as a potential stress point, when new data-center capacity gets delivered and customers have to live with their compute commitments. That’s investor-speak for: the check could come due long after the champagne is gone.
Why this matters to your portfolio
If Hayes is right, the AI trade may be less about endless demand and more about whether the supply side gets ahead of itself. That could ripple through:
- cloud and data-center operators
- chipmakers riding AI capex
- power, cooling, and infrastructure names
- anyone pricing in “AI forever” growth assumptions
Big picture: the AI boom can stay shiny for a long time — until the spreadsheets show up.