The data centre infrastructure boom fuelled the stock market’s AI euphoria: is it also now about to destroy it?
Unease about huge — and growing — capital spending has turned into a serious overhang for some of the biggest tech shares. That was clear last week, when the stock market chose to focus on how Alphabet had burnt through cash for the first time in its history as a public company, rather than the surprising leap in cloud revenue and profitability that the spending had made possible.
This week, Meta has been put through the wringer for vowing to press on with its massive investments. At the same time, it dashed hopes that it would relieve the financial pressure by reselling some of its surplus data centre capacity, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already done.