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Is AI a Bubble? Follow the Infrastructure Money: Google, OpenAI and NVIDIA
Google must double AI serving capacity every six months, OpenAI raised $110 billion, and AI capex dwarfs Uber, Netflix and Tesla's cash burn. Why AI is infrastructure.
"Now we must double every 6 months… the next 1000x in 4-5 years."
That is what Google's AI infrastructure boss told employees: the company has to double its serving capacity every six months to meet demand for AI services.
Doubling every six months
A doubling every six months is exponential growth: roughly 2 doublings per year, so 4x annually, and over 4 to 5 years that compounds to the targeted 1,000x increase.
It's a high-stakes bet, especially as Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has publicly warned of "irrationality" in AI investments, while internally prioritizing the risk of underinvesting. Companies don't plan for 1,000x when they think demand is about to collapse.
The money behind the models
A few months later, Amazon, NVIDIA and SoftBank, three of the world's most sophisticated investors, handed OpenAI $110 billion at an $840 billion valuation. That's more than double the $40 billion OpenAI raised the year before.
For context: all US venture capital combined invested $170 billion into American startups in all of 2023.
And in case you're still wondering what the AI hype is all about: the total cash burn of Uber, Netflix and Tesla combined is many factors less than what major players will be investing in AI infrastructure in 2026 alone.
A day in the life of NVIDIA
On a single day in October 2025, NVIDIA announced:
- an Eli Lilly partnership
- a Palantir partnership
- a Hyundai partnership
- a Samsung partnership
- a $1 billion investment in Nokia
- an Uber partnership to build a 100,000 robotaxi fleet
- $500 billion in expected revenue through 2026
- connecting quantum computers to its AI chips
- a DoE partnership to build 7 massive supercomputers
That's one company, one day.
AI is infrastructure, like electricity and the internet
As NVIDIA put it: AI is one of the most powerful forces shaping the world today. It is not a clever app or a single model; it is essential infrastructure, like electricity and the internet. AI runs on real hardware, real energy, and real economics. It takes raw materials and converts them into intelligence at scale. Every company will use it. Every country will build it.
That framing explains the numbers above. You don't build power plants and grids for a fad, and you don't double serving capacity every six months for one either.
Not in my backyard
I'm getting 3x more things done thanks to AI agents. That's my answer whenever someone asks me about an AI bubble.
There's also a bigger picture. The US economy cannot afford letting the AI market implode. It would give China a lead on AI and robots. It's a race for economic supremacy.
So learn how to use AI at work and in life, and you might do very well. This is the future of work, society and life. Embrace AI, leverage it, use it.