Wall Street loves a good AI story, but someone should probably check the receipts. This week, IBM (IBM) CEO Arvind Krishna did exactly that, and the numbers are uncomfortable enough to make even the most bullish hyperscaler pause.
Speaking with Decoder, Krishna laid out the economics of today's AI infrastructure boom. Building and fully equipping a 1-gigawatt AI data center runs about $80 billion. Multiply that across the nearly 100 gigawatts of hyperscale capacity already announced industrywide, and you're staring at roughly $8 trillion in capital spending.
His assessment was direct: "There is no way you're going to get a return on that." Companies would need approximately $800 billion in profit just to cover the interest costs on that scale of investment. Not to generate returns. Just to service the debt.
The Spending Frenzy Hasn't Slowed Down
Krishna's warning comes as Big Tech acts like capital constraints are a myth. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Microsoft Corp (MSFT), Alphabet Inc. (GOOG), and Meta Platforms Inc. (META) are collectively pouring tens of billions into compute, GPUs, real estate, power infrastructure, and cooling systems. It increasingly resembles an existential race to establish AI dominance, with profitability treated as a secondary concern.
Nvidia Corp's (NVDA) revenue projections depend on hyperscalers maintaining this pace indefinitely. The market caps of chipmakers and equipment suppliers are built on the assumption that this narrative holds. But what if it doesn't?
Krishna is suggesting something darker: the fundamental economics might not support the ambition, regardless of how much companies want to believe otherwise.
The Monetization Problem Nobody Wants To Discuss
If capital expenditures keep climbing while revenue models remain unclear, someone will eventually hit the brakes. Enterprise customers haven't demonstrated that generative AI delivers ROI at scale. Inference costs continue to explode. Power shortages are already delaying deployments in multiple regions.
You don't commit $8 trillion because the business case is compelling. You commit it because you're terrified of being left behind in the race.
A Game Of Chicken With Trillion-Dollar Stakes
Right now, investor sentiment is driven by fear of missing out rather than financial fundamentals. The first hyperscaler to reduce AI spending could spark a broader reassessment of infrastructure profitability and expose how much of this buildout is narrative versus actual economics.
Eventually, CFOs will start asking uncomfortable questions with even more uncomfortable answers. How quickly can AI revenue realistically scale? Who ultimately pays for inference costs? What happens if enterprise adoption is slower than projected? What if power limitations become a true bottleneck?
If Krishna's math is correct, the AI supercycle doesn't end with collapsing demand. It ends with a financial constraint, where the first major player to pause spending triggers an industry-wide reevaluation of what this massive infrastructure investment is actually worth.
The AI revolution might be genuine. But IBM's calculations suggest the capital model supporting it might not be sustainable. And the market hasn't begun to price in the risk that this gold rush hits a wall long before the returns materialize.