Ray Dalio Says AI Boom Is a Bubble, Warns of 1920s-Style Bust

MacroIndustry
โดย Yahoo Finance·US·Read original
Summary · why it matters

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio said Wednesday that the artificial intelligence boom is a bubble, warning in a post on X that it follows the same historical pattern as past technology manias. The Bridgewater Associates founder pointed to the late 1920s, when electricity, refrigeration, telephones, radio, airplanes and cars all emerged at once, and said the danger is that people fail to distinguish the miracle from the investment tied to it, since a transformative technology can still crash if its stocks are priced too high or bought with borrowed money, as happened in the 1929-1933 bust. Dalio said those same dynamics apply to AI today, adding that "we are now in a bubble," and that investors must judge who truly benefits, whether the technology generates real returns, and whether current valuations reflect excessive optimism. His warning comes as Amazon.com, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta Platforms double down on infrastructure, with U.S. hyperscalers on pace to spend roughly $916 billion on capital expenditures over the next 12 months, a figure Apollo Global Management's Torsten Slok said puts data-center capex on track to reach 3.1% of U.S. GDP by 2027, nearly three times the peak share telecom investment reached during the dot-com buildout. Nvidia is further fueling that buildout by acting as a "buyer of last resort" and partnering with Wall Street to help finance customers' data centers.

Impact on stocks 6

Artificial Intelligence · 5 stocks
Aging Population · 1 stocks

Theme Impact 3

Off-coverage companies 1

Bridgewater AssociatesPrivate± Mixed
relevance

Related news

Digital Realty Launches ServiceFabric MCP Across 800 Data Centers

Digital Realty made ServiceFabric MCP available on September 15, a software layer that lets AI agents design, monitor and troubleshoot network connections across more than 800 data centers, including third-party sites. The launch follows second quarter results reported on July 23, when Core FFO per share, excluding net promote, rose to $2.13 from $1.87 a year earlier, while the headline figure of $2.65 included a $188 million net promote. Renewal leases in the quarter were signed at rates 25.4% higher on a cash basis, and signed leases waiting to start added up to a $1.9 billion backlog of annualized base rent at 100% share. Management lifted its 2026 Core FFO per share outlook, excluding net promote, to $8.15 to $8.20, even as the company carried about $18.6 billion of debt at June 30, 2026 and set its 2026 development spending outlook, net of partner contributions, at $4.25 billion to $4.75 billion. Digital Realty calls MCP an emerging standard still being validated, and the announcement puts no dollar figure on what it could add to revenue.
Insider Monkey·3hRead more →
impact 5

US Hyperscalers to Spend Up to $725 Billion on AI Infrastructure in 2026

The top five US hyperscalers are projecting a combined capital expenditure of $660 billion to $725 billion for 2026, nearly double their 2025 outlays, as the AI build-out shifts from software to physical infrastructure. Microsoft is guiding for roughly $175 billion in adjusted capital expenditure for both FY2026 and FY2027, with two-thirds of quarterly spend going to short-lived assets like CPUs and GPUs and the rest to long-lived data center infrastructure, and it added 1 gigawatt of capacity in Q3 FY2026, doubling its global footprint in two years. Amazon AWS has raised its 2026 capex guidance to approximately $220 billion, with CEO Andy Jassy saying AI capacity is expected to remain constrained through 2027 and contracted demand extending into 2028. Meta saw profit drop 14% in Q2 2026 despite a 28% revenue increase as its build-out, including a 1 gigawatt data center in Ohio and a Louisiana facility that could scale to 5 gigawatts, compressed margins, while Alphabet raised its 2026 capex guidance to as much as $205 billion and its Google Cloud backlog more than doubled year-over-year to $240 billion. The Stargate joint venture involving Oracle, OpenAI and others targets up to $500 billion in infrastructure investment by 2029, and Oracle's FY2026 capex reached $55.7 billion, more than doubling from the previous year.
Yahoo Finance·4hRead more →
impact 4

Citi: Data Center Opposition Has Not Weakened AI Construction Pipeline

Citi says growing political opposition to artificial intelligence infrastructure ahead of the November U.S. midterm elections has not materially weakened the data center construction pipeline. Data center development has become a bipartisan flashpoint, with local governments introducing moratoriums and at least 15 state legislatures proposing tighter regulatory restrictions, yet spending remains strong as AI infrastructure demand continues to support development. The impact has been concentrated among speculative and early-stage projects, which are increasingly delayed or cancelled during local approval processes, while late-stage developments that have already secured sites and grid connections continue to move ahead. Hyperscalers are seeking workarounds to power constraints and local restrictions, with Amazon pursuing direct investment in nuclear development with Dominion Energy and Meta securing a major nuclear power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy. Citi does not expect another market shock comparable to the emergence of DeepSeek, arguing investors have already adjusted to the prospect of highly efficient Chinese models, though it flags a potentially greater risk from governments restricting models deemed too dangerous, which could abruptly create excess computing capacity.
Investing.com·5hRead more →