Investors have been rattled by the enormous amount of money AI companies are committing to spend on infrastructure buildouts. Amazon alone saw its share price drop precipitously earlier this month after announcing that it’s planning to spend $200 billion this year on AI. Microsoft’s shares also plummeted after stoking fears that a return on AI investment may be even further off than expected.
In total, big tech companies are predicted to spend a record-breaking $650 billion on AI in 2026 alone, astronomical commitments that have Wall Street seriously on edge.
Fears over an AI bubble continue to grow as analysts warn that companies are massively overinvesting. According to a new Bank of America survey of 162 fund managers, a significant 35 percent said corporations are overinvesting in capital expenditures — funds used by a company to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets — at a record proportion compared to previous survey results spanning the last 20 years. Only 20 percent said they approved of increasing capital expenditures.
An AI bubble is a clear focus. A full 25 percent of survey respondents said they see the AI bubble as the largest risk — even more so than inflation and geopolitical conflict. And 30 percent said that AI expenditures were the most likely source of a credit crisis.
In short, the survey results paint a dire picture of the current state of the market, blinking warning signs that big tech companies are spreading themselves too thin by continuing to hemorrhage tens of billions of dollars each quarter.
Meanwhile, tech leaders continue to justify their enormous spending, with Google CEO Sundar Pichai touting the present moment as “extraordinary” and “transformational,” during the AI Summit in New Delhi, India, on Wednesday, comparing the AI boom to the industrial revolution, “but ten times faster and ten times larger.”
AI chipmaker Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also attempted to calm spooked investors this week, arguing AI investments are just the beginning.
But analysts are far less convinced.
“I would say clients are justified in being worried [about an AI bubble] because there’s a lot of uncertainty,” Orbis Investments advisor Ben Preston told the Financial Times.
More on the AI bubble: Investors Concerned AI Bubble Is Finally Popping
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