In every good market crash, there's a flash point. In 2008, it was the Lehman Bros collapse and congress refusing the initial bailout. This might be the flashpoint, 75 data centers blocked this year and a supermajority of Americans against their construction.
jdm2212•48m ago
Why would this cause a market crash? A supply crunch in AI will push prices up.
forshaper•34m ago
Curiously, Richard Fuld, who was the CEO/chairman of Lehman Brothers, now invests in datacenters.
jdm2212•28m ago
Him and literally everyone else with investable money.
digdugdirk•30m ago
So much of the current bubble is predicated on the hype train continuing on its current trajectory. If anything lags behind, the bubble deflates.
For one potential path - Less datacenter construction means less GPUs, so less $$$ for Nvidia, which means less for them to spread around to prop up the LLM industrial complex, which means lower valuations, which means OpenAI and Anthropic can't get their trillion dollar valuations, which means VC's race for the exit to cash out, etc, etc.
jdm2212•23m ago
What specifically is the bubble you're talking about? Like which asset is seeing a runaway increase in valuation detached from fundamental value?
tobinfekkes•16m ago
... All of it? Does a bubble need to be confined to one vertical? It seems like The Bubble is just the sum of a bunch of other individual bubbles.
theandrewbailey•29m ago
Here I was thinking it will be somewhere between next-generation Nvidia chips, and inability to get ROI before the end of relatively quick GPU depreciation schedules.
skybrian•16m ago
If stopped before construction, the organizations funding the data centers still have the investment funds and can build in a different location or, worst case, give the money back to investors.
Assuming demand keeps up, owners of already-existing data centers continue to get windfall profits.
It would be like what happens when housing prices go up due to lack of supply.
xg15•25m ago
> Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is positioning himself as a positive voice on AI
Given Meta's (and also Mark's) reputation, I wonder how much that is helping the cause and how much its opponents...
skybrian•14m ago
Carbon taxes are a tough sell, but I bet a carbon tax specifically on data centers would pass.
panny•1h ago
jdm2212•48m ago
forshaper•34m ago
jdm2212•28m ago
digdugdirk•30m ago
For one potential path - Less datacenter construction means less GPUs, so less $$$ for Nvidia, which means less for them to spread around to prop up the LLM industrial complex, which means lower valuations, which means OpenAI and Anthropic can't get their trillion dollar valuations, which means VC's race for the exit to cash out, etc, etc.
jdm2212•23m ago
tobinfekkes•16m ago
theandrewbailey•29m ago
skybrian•16m ago
Assuming demand keeps up, owners of already-existing data centers continue to get windfall profits.
It would be like what happens when housing prices go up due to lack of supply.