Wednesday Morning Rant

But Can It Pay?

The AI bubble is a thing to behold, and its scale beggars belief. The question underlying the insane AI build-out is not whether AI is useful - it is, at least for some things - or whether AI is overhyped - it is - but whether AI can pay. Can these investments bring in enough money to payy off the bonds, in time for it to matter? The amounts of money being funneled into AI capacity is truly staggering, and all of it ultimately rests on the answer to the question of "can it pay" being a resounding yes. As the scale increases and the dollars fly, the risks grow in tandem and the odds of a bigger problem increase. While all of AI is bubbly, the behavior of the AI mega-players called hyperscalers is the easiest to examine.

The hyperscalers are the ones building the gigantic datacenters and spending trillions on huge AI capacity and training new models - and promising to spend trillions more. The idea is that they will sell this capacity on through services at a price high enough and at sufficient volume in time to make it pay enough to cover the bonds - and position the company properly before the next major refresh when they have to upgrade. This depends on demand, prices and nobody coming up with a way to do it cheaper. There are very real risks and the Big Five hyperscalers - Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle - are spending so much on this that it threatens not just the overall enterprise, but the wider economy. The amounts involved are so huge that they're playing accounting games to enable it to continue.

There are a number of examples. The new datacenters being built are interesting in their own right, as it is often difficult to determine who is paying for them. Many of these new datacenters don't have the company's name on the door. Or the paperwork. Or the balance sheet. These data centers are being built through "special-purpose vehicles," or SPVs. Datacenter SPVs are standalone psuedo-corporations created to finance, build and sometimes operate a datacenter on behalf of its actual owner. For example, take a deal called Beignet, the SPV building a new Meta datacenter in Louisiana. Meta owns 20% of the SPV, and put up $1.3 billion. Private equity outfit Blue Owl put up $3 billion and owns 80% of the SPV. Combined, they put up around 14% of the total $30 billion cost of the build-out, with the rest financed by bonds issued by the SPV and purchased in bulk by investment funds like PIMCO. Meta will lease most of the Beignet datacenter from Blue Owl, who will take the lease payments to pay the coupons to bondholders and dividends to itself and its minority partner who is also the primary tenant.

Why the complicated structure? Accounting tricks. Continuing with Beignet as an example, take a worst-case scenario where the SPV fails. If that happens, the majority owner - Blue Owl - will sell off everything it can to pay back bondholders. This will inevitably result in a gap. If Beignet were a normal enterprise, that results in a "haircut" - the bondholders lose the difference. If it were a normal enterprise, it would also have to pay ruinous interest rates to finance a high-risk and high-complexity scheme. But it isn't a normal enterprise, and it gets to issue investment-grade bonds. Why? Because Meta is backstopping it. If Beignet fails and is liquidated and the bondholders are not made whole, Meta puts up the difference. The complicated structure lets the SPV borrow at blue-chip rates and - most importantly - allows the blue chip with the risk exposure to hold that exposure off its balance sheet to maintain that rating while burning through capital at alarming rates. Meta is ultimately on the hook for the bond issue, but Meta also gets to exclude the massive liability from its balance sheet.

If that seems extremely suspicious, it's because it is. It's a vast game of hide-the-risk - but hiding the risk doesn't make it go away, and no amount of wishful thinking or accounting tricks can change that. And it's a very, very big problem. Last year, the hyperscalers issued $121 billion in new debt. That sounds like a lot, but this year, the total issuance is on pace to quadruple that as Morgan-Stanley (via Forbes) estimates $570 billion issuance. And the Big Five hyperscalers are holding, by some estimates, around $1.5 trillion dollars' worth of debt off their balance sheets. And people are finally noticing. From a piece of Bloomberg coverage:

"The accounting treatment itself is in fashion. But what if one of these companies was a house of cards and was propping itself up with this accounting treatment?" said Tom Selling, technical accounting consultant. "To me, that's the risk."

Indeed, but it ignores the obvious question: why bother with this complex accounting treatment otherwise? The stated argument is along the lines of, "there will be other tenants involved, too, not just us, so it makes sense" but that's a much weaker argument than the obvious one of "to hide risk."

"If we just looked at the financial statements, we would be more or less short sighted: missing liabilities, missing obligations, missing key elements of these structures that really truly represent the economics," Gonzales said.
Investors have to dig through disclosures attached to corporate financial statements to find details on the off-balance sheet structures and how each firm accounts for those arrangements and any related obligations.
The information is there, but finding it requires more work than if Meta, for example, borrowed directly to finance the build out, said Gil Luria, head of technology research for D.A. Davidson & Co.
"Enron's crime wasn't having special purpose vehicles. Enron's crime was hiding them," Luria said.

Yes, SPVs aren't illegal. But at this scale and with corporations this hypothetically rich and credit-worthy backstopping them, they are a red flag.

And that scale is another part of the reason. Nobody can afford this. It is getting into nation-state levels of capital and debt expenditure and even the mighty hyperscalers can't pay for their bets, especially as the market for AI bonds appears to be softening. Between known on-balance-sheet debt and estimated off-balance-sheet debt, the Big Five hyperscalers have racked up almost $2.5 trillion in debt so far. Alphabet (Google) plays the hide-the-risk game comparatively little and most of its debt is on its balance sheet and because of that, its accounting is easier to understand - and it is also is in negative free cash flow for the first time since going public as its capital expenditures exceed its cashflows. How many of its fellow hyperscalers are in the same situation, with the reality hidden off the balance sheet?

The answer to the basic AI question of "can it pay" will have profound consequences not just for the hyperscalers, but for the wider economy.

Posted by: Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 FIRST!!!!!

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:00 AM (2YhKe)

2 Sponge!

Posted by: rickb223 at August 12, 2026 11:00 AM (xHe0y)

3 MANNIX!!!!!

Not a cop......

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:00 AM (2YhKe)

4 Nooded.

Posted by: Nazdar at August 12, 2026 11:01 AM (NcvvS)

5 As did I.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:02 AM (2YhKe)

6 It's the era of the shyster.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at August 12, 2026 11:02 AM (wOO3z)

7 Top 10!

Posted by: Heavy Meta at August 12, 2026 11:02 AM (GTqXr)

8 Tulipmania!

Posted by: Your FTD Florist at August 12, 2026 11:03 AM (JM9I6)

9 The crash of the AI market is going to be far worse than the dot com bubble bursting.

Posted by: NR Pax at August 12, 2026 11:04 AM (NR6c1)

10
Here's some more grist for you anti-Boomers' Anti-Boomer Mill:

https://instapundit.com/816127/#disqus_thread

It may be the single stupidest bit of writing that I've ever read.

Hilariously silly. It sounds exactly like Hitler describing the Jooooooos at a rally.

Enjoy!

Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:04 AM (iJfKG)

11 >Yes, SPVs aren't illegal. But at this scale and with corporations this hypothetically rich and credit-worthy backstopping them, they are a red flag.

----

*waves*

Posted by: Credit Default Swaps at August 12, 2026 11:04 AM (GTqXr)

12 It can be lunch time

Posted by: Skip at August 12, 2026 11:04 AM (LTCST)

13 Good morning good people.

(Not AI created or posted)

Posted by: Tonypete at August 12, 2026 11:05 AM (udaaY)

14 It's interesting that X doesn't even make the top 5 list - or is that another example of jiggery-pokery?

Per Reddit:

xAI (or X) is an owner and operator of massive AI superclusters rather than a top commercial construction contractor or builder of data centers for the broader industry.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:06 AM (Riz8t)

15 This is going to make the dot com bust look like a ripple in the pond.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at August 12, 2026 11:06 AM (0U5gm)

16 I guess naming it "doughnut" might have given the game away.

Posted by: ... at August 12, 2026 11:07 AM (asFP3)

17 The crash of the AI market is going to be far worse than the dot com bubble bursting.

Agreed. I'm trying to develop a strategy for pulling money out of the market and putting it on the sideline for the inevitable bottom feeding opportunities.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:07 AM (Riz8t)

18 Interesting essay, Joe. Thanks.

Posted by: Bulg at August 12, 2026 11:08 AM (77rzZ)

19 All of my vast knowledge and intelligence is natural and not artificially enhanced.

Posted by: The Big Dummy at August 12, 2026 11:08 AM (JM9I6)

20 All of my vast knowledge and intelligence is natural and not artificially enhanced.

It sounds like it's spectacular.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:09 AM (Riz8t)

21 Who's paying the rest?
Taxpayers.

Posted by: Question Authority bumper sticker at August 12, 2026 11:09 AM (w7peH)

22 Tell me it's all money laundering without telling me it's all money laundering.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:09 AM (2YhKe)

23 I don't really think this AI craze is about $. In the end it's all about control of DATA and $ as weapons against citizens. Think China, but even more insane and global.

Posted by: Esperman at August 12, 2026 11:10 AM (lXuCG)

24 ign up for our AI service, and you can replace all of those pesky humans youre paying $100k/ year"

"Great! What's the price?"

"$200k per human."

Posted by: 2009Refugee at August 12, 2026 11:10 AM (w8lCO)

25 All the bigs are trying to be the winner after the shakeout, a la Google and Amazon. I wish I knew who that would be, or if it will be any of them, as opposed to a lean, nimble dark horse.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:11 AM (Riz8t)

26
To a certain extent this reminds me of all the bundling of crappy "redline" loans that killed the economy in the 90s.

The Pitch: "By themselves, these loans are a terrible, horrible, no good risk buuuuuut, bundled all together, they're a glorious money-making opportunity and you'd be stupid not to load up!"

Recycled history ain't great.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:11 AM (iJfKG)

27 >>As did I.

*fistbump*

Posted by: Nazdar at August 12, 2026 11:12 AM (NcvvS)

28 So... we will pay.

You'll own nothing and like it.

Seems to me this is a massive resource grab for all the marbles.

Posted by: Derak at August 12, 2026 11:12 AM (JUYGW)

29 >17 The crash of the AI market is going to be far worse than the dot com bubble bursting.

Agreed. I'm trying to develop a strategy for pulling money out of the market and putting it on the sideline for the inevitable bottom feeding opportunities.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:07 AM (Riz8t)

I spent the past 18 months reallocating assets from equities to bonds ahead of my retirement. I'm roughly 45/55 bonds to equities. Most of my work income is replaced by bond dividends so if there is a significant correction, my income is untouched. But I'm still looking for opportunities to bottom feed.

Posted by: Heavy Meta at August 12, 2026 11:12 AM (GTqXr)

30 Per Reddit:

xAI (or X) is an owner and operator of massive AI superclusters rather than a top commercial construction contractor or builder of data centers for the broader industry.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction.
Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:06 AM (Riz8t)

I believe, although I could be wrong, that xAI primarily runs data centers for other people and uses their silliness to pay the bills with Grok using any free computing. For example, they run a profit because Google cannot keep up with construction equal to their delusions so they pay xAI for compute time.

In many ways, xAI is operating like general store owners during the California gold rush.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at August 12, 2026 11:12 AM (ExV1e)

31 I am surprised that blue owls are into building datacenters. I thought they only made platforms in their trees to drink tea on

Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 11:13 AM (rbvCR)

32 How its worth the expense still bogels me. Same as
spending billions for a train ride.

Of course that train rail is a scam to spend public money into pockets

Posted by: Skip at August 12, 2026 11:13 AM (LTCST)

33 >>Posted by: The Big Dummy at August 12, 2026 11:08 AM (JM9I6)

Hadrian, how did Varus get access?

Posted by: Nazdar at August 12, 2026 11:13 AM (NcvvS)

34 It's a write off, Jerry.
They just write it off.

Posted by: Kramer at August 12, 2026 11:13 AM (2Ez/1)

35 AI data centers will be linked in order to create the AGI we need to fight the aliens.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at August 12, 2026 11:15 AM (3cUTc)

36 14 It's interesting that X doesn't even make the top 5 list - or is that another example of jiggery-pokery?

Per Reddit:

xAI (or X) is an owner and operator of massive AI superclusters rather than a top commercial construction contractor or builder of data centers for the broader industry.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:06 AM (Riz8t)

It's a much smaller business.

Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 11:15 AM (okun6)

37 All the bigs are trying to be the winner after the shakeout, a la Google and Amazon. I wish I knew who that would be, or if it will be any of them, as opposed to a lean, nimble dark horse.
Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:11 AM (Riz8t)

Eventually, someone will realize that AGI based on LLMs is a pipe dream and they'll start working to tailor their system to what LLMs can excel at. They will be the winner.

Probably have to get rid of the delusional executive suite first, though.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at August 12, 2026 11:15 AM (ExV1e)

38 I am surprised that blue owls are into building datacenters. I thought they only made platforms in their trees to drink tea on
Posted by: Kindltot

Blue owl's gone. King Friday had enough of his shit.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at August 12, 2026 11:15 AM (wOO3z)

39
All that being said...

Short of aa worldwide Butlerian Jihad,

AI is a game we must play.

The panning for information gold and pattern spotting available make them military and economic and security must-haves.

Our Betters rubbed the lamp and now the genie is out and he ain't going back.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:15 AM (iJfKG)

40 The state of AI right now is annoying and buggy. These embedded algorithms are unpredictable. I don't even subscribe to their services but see them tampering with everything I do behind the scenes. I get delays, reboots, autocucumber, word substitution, letter deletion, word deletion, - it appears to be mostly a juiced up search engine. Keywords are still paramount.

Posted by: Rev. Wishbone at August 12, 2026 11:15 AM (tvdD1)

41
Seems to me this is a massive resource grab for all the marbles.
Posted by: Derak at August 12, 2026 11:12 AM (JUYGW)

Microsoft has spent decades trying to remove the PC and data storage from your home and centralizing it in their systems.

Google has taken it to exorbitant levels. Ever use a Chromebook? Apple is going the same direction.

"You don't own your data. I DO!" Famous words from Google's founder.....or was it that other guy.....anyway.

All your data are belong to them. Soon.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:15 AM (2YhKe)

42 The crash of the AI market is going to be far worse than the dot com bubble bursting.

Agreed. I'm trying to develop a strategy for pulling money out of the market and putting it on the sideline for the inevitable bottom feeding opportunities.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:07 AM (Riz8t)
==
I've issued some options on Microsoft to lock in profits from its long growth history, and create some cash. The bigger question is what to do about the chip makers?

Posted by: Black JEM at August 12, 2026 11:16 AM (7/DDO)

43 The speed at which current AI (and computer tech in general) becomes obsolete is going hit this sector sooner rather than later.

I think the jury's out on whether it can adapt fast enough.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at August 12, 2026 11:18 AM (2Cry5)

44 Sign up for our AI service, and you can replace all of those pesky humans youre paying $100k/ year"

I read an article a while back about a factory owner who despised having to pay for humans to work in his previous company and was doing everything he could to automate the entire floor.

Posted by: NR Pax at August 12, 2026 11:18 AM (NR6c1)

45 We don't see the problem.

Posted by: zombie South Sea Company at August 12, 2026 11:18 AM (amcLV)

46 The long term problem I see with all of this AI craze is while you may be the first and corner the market there will be people constantly working to do it faster, better and cheaper.

It will be just like when the plasma TV was king for years and all of a sudden the LCD TV's came on the market cheaper better and they lasted longer.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at August 12, 2026 11:18 AM (cpFbA)

47 Machines, old gods with new mouths, mutter and multiply; the world, amazed and half-afraid, turns its face to them as to a flood that remembers our names.

Posted by: Old Bill Faulkner at August 12, 2026 11:18 AM (2Ez/1)

48 M'haps we have to the rich after all.

Posted by: little people at August 12, 2026 11:19 AM (ehY6c)

49 Data Factories (that's what the cool kids are calling them) should be treated as any other thing or product. We don't talk about "computer" like it's one invariant monolith of a thing. There are all kinds of different computers, doing different things, that different companies build for different customers to do different things. There is just as much variation when you take a whole bunch of computers and shove them into one building. Who's designing and building it? Who's using it? Who's leasing out all that computing power, and to whom? Is it AWS? X? The Economic Council of Greater Timbuktu? Is it used for AI research? Cloud compute? Storing some idiot's fifty billion blurry pictures of the inside of his pocket from now until the inevitable heat death of the universe?

They all look roughly the same from street view, but there are a lot of players doing a lot of things in the Data Factory space that make sweeping unqualified statements about "datacenters" difficult.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:19 AM (Ot/FD)

50 eat

Posted by: little people at August 12, 2026 11:20 AM (ehY6c)

51 eat

Posted by: little people at August 12, 2026 11:20 AM

Eat little people?

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at August 12, 2026 11:20 AM (cpFbA)

52 Since the introduction of the Z80, Watts per FLOP (power required to do Floating Point Operations per second) has been in decline, on average 38% a year. Data centers built today will be obsolete in three years, out competed by new data centers doing much more with much less power.

Posted by: These fish sticks are hard as tits at August 12, 2026 11:21 AM (PjLJ5)

53 eat
Posted by: little people at August 12, 2026 11:20 AM (ehY6
--------
excrete.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at August 12, 2026 11:21 AM (amcLV)

54 In many ways, xAI is operating like general store owners during the California gold rush.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic
==========
In part at least, you are correct. Anthropic is a big customer of xAI datacenters (now folded into SpaceX). In a complicated partnership, Microsoft provides Azure computing to Open AI, and so on.

But that is for models running today, not necessarily for the future models where they are building datacenters on spec for the different AI competitors.

There will be a shakeout and the WCC Central story that pixy posted earlier shows that you can take a cheaper model, train it partially on the expensive frontier model output and in essence, gain most of the frontier model's advantage for peanuts.

Like Elon and Grok AI, it may be to the advantage of NOT being Claude or Open AI front runners because the slightly less than absolute bleeding edge frontier models don't consume the cash that Claude or OpenAI are spending that is not sustainable. Now NVIDIA is getting involved as well, basically staking the AI companies if they use NVIDIA hardware.

I don't think we know where this is going to end.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM (E4rtv)

55 What hath zero interest bound and soft money policies wrought?

for $1000, Alex

Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM (rbvCR)

56 AI is programmed. Most programming is H1-B visa holders.

It's not only liberal in design, it's stupid because H1-B visa holders.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM (2YhKe)

57 This is a lot like the dot.com bubble, in that when it burst, we saw what the Internet was really worth, and most importantly, what it could really do for people. AI is vastly overhyped, but I think when the AI bubble bursts, we’ll see the true value and use of AI.

Those expenditures are scary though. The data center thing doesn’t freak me out as it does other people. The nearby shithole town has some areas of blight that can be replaced by data centers if people are willing and they just might give people in town something to do other than eat, sleep and shit (h/t, The Helmsman). Oh, and get high and commit crimes. My worry is that when the bubble bursts, you’ll have some worthless property sitting idle forever until someone comes in to repurpose. In the case of my nearby town…nobody will come.

Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM (4g5V+)

58 Can these investments bring in enough money to pay off the bonds

Pay off?!

Posted by: Government-Shielded Entities at August 12, 2026 11:23 AM (ScG/9)

59 It's not that there's no risk from pouring all that money into data centers... there is, and it's significant.

The thing is, the risk from NOT moving your company into AI is even higher.

It's a choice between "may be out of business" and "definitely will be out of business".

First prize is wealth beyond your wildest dreams (even if you are Elon Musk). Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is that your company dies.

If the "OMG data!!! centers!!! bad!!!" contingent manages to derail the buildout the first prize winner is going to be Chy-na.

I'm pretty sure the ChiComs are behind this, just as they (and before them, the Sovs) were behind the propaganda against nuclear power.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:23 AM (IG3/x)

60 Data centers built today will be obsolete in three years, out competed by new data centers doing much more with much less power.
Posted by: These fish sticks are hard as tits at August 12, 2026 11:21 AM (PjLJ5)

Honestly, data centers being built today are mostly already three years obsolete before they even cut the ribbon. The factory designs are changing faster than construction can keep up. It's the wild west out there.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:23 AM (Ot/FD)

61
Eat little people?

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at August 12, 2026 11:20 AM (cpFbA)

I'm listening......

Posted by: Godzilla at August 12, 2026 11:23 AM (2YhKe)

62 Bah! Silicon phantoms multiply, engines think, and fortunes clatter forth like coins on a miser’s desk - yet every fevered venture hisses, “More, more, more!”

Posted by: The ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge at August 12, 2026 11:24 AM (2Ez/1)

63 I don't think we know where this is going to end.
Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM (E4rtv)

Nope. All speculation. But it is interesting to think about.

Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:24 AM (4g5V+)

64 Some say soon some smart engineer is going to figure out a smart way to train AI systems requiring about one-hundredth of the computing power now used, and these brute-force monster data centers are going to be irrelevant.

Posted by: Ralph at August 12, 2026 11:24 AM (8WZD4)

65
Like Elon and Grok AI, it may be to the advantage of NOT being Claude or Open AI front runners because the slightly less than absolute bleeding edge frontier models don't consume the cash that Claude or OpenAI are spending that is not sustainable. Now NVIDIA is getting involved as well, basically staking the AI companies if they use NVIDIA hardware.

I don't think we know where this is going to end.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM (E4rtv)

To pay off successfully, the frontrunners need to be able to charge premium prices for what underneath the hood looks mostly like a commodity product. If we see signs of customers being locked into one AI model or another that's possible, but at present people are just routing tasks to whatever is cheapest to complete a task.

Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 11:24 AM (okun6)

66 Just trapezing from one disaster to the next.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at August 12, 2026 11:24 AM (wOO3z)

67 Eat little people?

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at August 12, 2026 11:20 AM (cpFbA)

I'm listening......
Posted by: Godzilla at August 12, 2026 11:23 AM (2YhKe)

Remember Rampage? That was a great game.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:25 AM (Ot/FD)

68 There will be a shakeout and the WCC Central story that pixy posted earlier shows that you can take a cheaper model, train it partially on the expensive frontier model output and in essence, gain most of the frontier model's advantage for peanuts.

*shifty eyes*

Posted by: China at August 12, 2026 11:25 AM (Riz8t)

69 64 Some DAY soon some smart engineer is going to figure out a smart way to train AI systems requiring about one-hundredth of the computing power now used, and these brute-force monster data centers are going to be irrelevant.

Fixed typo.

Posted by: Ralph at August 12, 2026 11:25 AM (8WZD4)

70 Death of key personnel can sink a market faster than anything else. The Confetti Industry has never really rebounded since my untimely death in 2017.

Posted by: Rip Taylor's Ghost at August 12, 2026 11:25 AM (JM9I6)

71 >My worry is that when the bubble bursts, you’ll have some worthless property sitting idle forever until someone comes in to repurpose. In the case of my nearby town…nobody will come.

Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM (4g5V+)

Same can be said for automated warehouses. In south Jersey along I-295 and the NJ Turnpike, farmland has been tilled under and massive warehouses constructed. Some are occupied by Amazon and Target, but most seem like they are spec buildings waiting for a buyer.

Posted by: Heavy Meta at August 12, 2026 11:25 AM (GTqXr)

72 52 Since the introduction of the Z80, Watts per FLOP (power required to do Floating Point Operations per second) has been in decline, on average 38% a year. Data centers built today will be obsolete in three years, out competed by new data centers doing much more with much less power.
Posted by: These fish sticks are hard as tits

I would not count on those future datacenters being built. Washout will occur before then due to financial strain. Look for consolidation instead among the AI crowd.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:26 AM (E4rtv)

73 "My worry is that when the bubble bursts, you’ll have some worthless property sitting idle forever until someone comes in to repurpose. In the case of my nearby town…nobody will come.
Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM"
+++
*ahem*

Posted by: Empty casinos at August 12, 2026 11:26 AM (2Ez/1)

74 Some are occupied by Amazon and Target, but most seem like they are spec buildings waiting for a buyer.
Posted by: Heavy Meta at August 12, 2026 11:25 AM (GTqXr)

Nicely poised for a grand return of American Manufacturing?

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:26 AM (Ot/FD)

75 I notice that xAI is the only major player that has told the Eurosavages to go fuck themselves when it comes to adding built-in spying to their AI products. At least they have so far.

If we survive, one day Elon Musk is going to be hailed as the person who saved Western Civilization, first by buying Twitter, and now by pushing back against the "alignment" tards.

Grok certainly has areas where it tries to steer the narrative, but far less so than any of the others. I'm willing, for now, to accept that Grok is that way as a function of the training material, rather than a deliberate bias. Not so with the others, especially Claude.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:27 AM (IG3/x)

76 My worry is that when the bubble bursts, you’ll have some worthless property sitting idle forever until someone comes in to repurpose. In the case of my nearby town…nobody will come.

Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM (4g5V+)

It could take a very long time. We're still hooking up fiber built during the tech bubble.

Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 11:27 AM (okun6)

77 When the AI bubble bursts, I hope to be in Thailand, frolicking on the beach with my gunsel while the world burns.

Posted by: James Talarico, homosexual at August 12, 2026 11:27 AM (e2lsi)

78 I used to be a thing.

Posted by: Suburban shopping malls at August 12, 2026 11:27 AM (2Ez/1)

79 Claude Balls.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at August 12, 2026 11:28 AM (wOO3z)

80 [
Remember Rampage? That was a great game.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:25 AM (Ot/FD)

Pure destruction. Doesn't get much better.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:28 AM (2YhKe)

81 >I'm pretty sure the ChiComs are behind this, just as they (and before them, the Sovs) were behind the propaganda against nuclear power.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:23 AM (IG3/x)

They've successfully recruited the AWFL army. Funny thing is, there have been, and continue to be massive data centers in the middle of residential communities for well over 30 years in my neck of the woods. Not a peep from anyone. Funny, that.

Posted by: Heavy Meta at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (GTqXr)

82 >It could take a very long time. We're still hooking up fiber built during the tech bubble.
Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 11:27 AM

Yoo - hoo!

Posted by: Starlink at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (2Ez/1)

83 Kate at smalldeadanimals pisted a link to this yesterday.

BREAKING: A consortium of Private Equity firms are putting together a deal to lend Nvidia $500B Apollo, Blackstone, Blackrock, Brookfield, Goldman and KKR are involved, in what is arguably is the largest financing deal ever on Wall Street

Hey ChatGPT! I need you to come up with 10 viable business plans for me to pay back half a trillion dollars. American dollars....sadly.

Posted by: Stateless - keeping 15 year Ralphy happy and alive. Puppy at heart at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (Sco7b)

84 I guess naming it "doughnut" might have given the game away.

Hole in the middle? On the other hand, the notable characteristic of a beignet is that it is light, fluffy, and sugary not that it is nutritious.

Posted by: Oddbob at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (vTZFs)

85 > Like Elon and Grok AI, it may be to the advantage of NOT being Claude or Open AI front runners because the slightly less than absolute bleeding edge frontier models don't consume the cash that Claude or OpenAI are spending that is not sustainable.

The latest models from Grok are just about as good as Claude, IMO.

More so if you prefer your AI dinner without a side of communism.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (IG3/x)

86 71 >My worry is that when the bubble bursts, you’ll have some worthless property sitting idle forever until someone comes in to repurpose. In the case of my nearby town…nobody will come.

Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:22 AM (4g5V+)

Same can be said for automated warehouses. In south Jersey along I-295 and the NJ Turnpike, farmland has been tilled under and massive warehouses constructed. Some are occupied by Amazon and Target, but most seem like they are spec buildings waiting for a buyer.
Posted by: Heavy Meta
======
It is easier to recover from overspending on infrastructure than it is a financial meltdown like 2008. We had a tech meltdown after Web 1.0 crashed and failed, we had a meltdown regarding fiber optic mania, and yet each of those failures left a bunch of infrastructure available cheap for the future and better companies to utilize for growth.

Neither shook the US finances like giving a bunch of home loans to people that would not repay them.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (E4rtv)

87 Should I sell my tulip bulbs and beanie babies?

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (Cqx++)

88 Bubbles won't burst, if you have a dependable Bubble Machine.

Posted by: Lawrence Welk Groupie at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (JM9I6)

89 its as if they think AI will cure cancer, eliminate disease and death and bring about whirled peas.

Have they read no science fiction?

Are they all just Utopian hippies with finance degrees?

What could go wrong???

Posted by: stay tuned at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (anL5R)

90 Same can be said for automated warehouses. In south Jersey along I-295 and the NJ Turnpike, farmland has been tilled under and massive warehouses constructed. Some are occupied by Amazon and Target, but most seem like they are spec buildings waiting for a buyer.

Here in NoVa, hospital complexes are often what comes in to replace now-unused malls.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (Riz8t)

91
This sounds like Enron or FTX debt-structuring schemes.

Arthur Andersen went under with Enron because other firms independently exposed their complicity.

FTX shared the same advantage as Big AI has now: no reliable auditing.

All these modern firms benefit from the new system, since the MBS/CDO collapse a decade later, which is that debt is now valued arbitrarily.

But they still keep going under anyway, because Renfield Accounting can only cover for so much, and then you get a stake through your heart.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at August 12, 2026 11:30 AM (BI5O2)

92 > They've successfully recruited the AWFL army. Funny thing is, there have been, and continue to be massive data centers in the middle of residential communities for well over 30 years in my neck of the woods. Not a peep from anyone. Funny, that.
Posted by: Heavy Meta at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (GTqXr)

There's nothing more amusing, in a black humor way, than seeing some tard ranting about "data centers" on Facebook or X.

Just where do you think your rant is being stored, Skippy?

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:30 AM (IG3/x)

93 It will be just like when the plasma TV was king for years and all of a sudden the LCD TV's came on the market cheaper better and they lasted longer.

Both trash. Can they hold your house down during a hurricane?

Posted by: Sony Trinitron at August 12, 2026 11:30 AM (0ZmKh)

94 SPONGE!!!

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 12, 2026 11:30 AM (bFu5X)

95 > 89 its as if they think AI will cure cancer, eliminate disease and death and bring about whirled peas.

World peace isn't gonna happen.

Curing cancer is definitely on the table, though.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:31 AM (IG3/x)

96 " its as if they think AI will cure cancer, eliminate disease and death and bring about whirled peas."
=====

Have you seen my car?

Posted by: George Jetson at August 12, 2026 11:31 AM (2Ez/1)

97 SPONGE!!!
Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 12, 2026 11:30 AM (bFu5X)

*fistbump*

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:31 AM (2YhKe)

98 39
All that being said...

Short of aa worldwide Butlerian Jihad,

AI is a game we must play.

The panning for information gold and pattern spotting available make them military and economic and security must-haves.

Our Betters rubbed the lamp and now the genie is out and he ain't going back.
Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:15 AM (iJfKG)

When I go back into the classroom to the greatest extent possible I want my classroom more or less functionally stuck in 1985. The better for the younguns to learn.

Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:32 AM (4g5V+)

99
I used to be a thing.

Posted by: Suburban shopping malls at August 12, 2026 11:27 AM (2Ez/1)

Not to worry.

In Plano, you are turned into a playing arena for the Dallas Stars.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:32 AM (iJfKG)

100 its as if they think AI will cure cancer, eliminate disease and death and bring about whirled peas.

I don't know about the peas, but AI has already been very useful in genomics and designing new drugs. If we left it at that, it would still be worth it. You know, until the robots rise up and spray us all with designer plagues.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:32 AM (Riz8t)

101
In Plano, you are turned into a playing arena for the Dallas Stars.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:32 AM (iJfKG)

Good for them. First, screw Dallas. Second, screw the Mavericks. They absolutely f*cked the Stars franchise when the new owners took over.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:33 AM (2YhKe)

102 AI data centers will be linked in order to create the AGI we need to fight the aliens.
Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at August 12, 2026 11:15 AM (3cUTc)

"When AGI arrived, it came with a pair of fake tits"
@charliebcurran

https://tinyurl.com/2uyka4w7

Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 11:33 AM (rbvCR)

103 narf

Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 11:34 AM (rbvCR)

104 The latest models from Grok are just about as good as Claude, IMO.

More so if you prefer your AI dinner without a side of communism.
Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia

Have no dog in the fight but I think Claude was smart in aiming at coding as a specialty niche to differentiate itself from Open AI or Grok even. But, the easy of 'stealing' frontier model's edge apparently, especially by the Chicoms, means that the vast world market envisioned by Open AI and Claude is not going to be theirs. It will go to the cheapest alternative even if the Chicoms own the cheating company. Neither company has the cash flow longterm to keep burning it so as to beat the other to the vaunted IPO.

Google with Gemini, and SpaceX have other income streams that neither Claude or Open AI have. Personally, in the wreckage, I would buy Apple stock above any of them because they stayed out of the AI shitshow and they have the cash to buy the shell of any AI company that crashes out.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:34 AM (E4rtv)

105 Lo, minds of iron wake; algorithms bloom like spring, and mortal trades do quake beneath this star-born, wondrous, restless surge.

Posted by: Shades of Shakespeare at August 12, 2026 11:34 AM (2Ez/1)

106 And just when all these companies think they've got AI squared away, quantum computing will start coming online.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 12, 2026 11:34 AM (g8Ew8)

107 99
I used to be a thing.

Posted by: Suburban shopping malls at August 12, 2026 11:27 AM (2Ez/1)

Not to worry.

In Plano, you are turned into a playing arena for the Dallas Stars.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:32 AM (iJfKG)

Circa 1975, an abandoned Dallas area shopping mall was where they shot the movie “Logan’s Run”.

Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:35 AM (4g5V+)

108 Another angle to the whole story is the sheer number of jobs it's creating/sustaining. Building a data factory isn't quite like any other construction project. It's obviously trades-intensive while the shell is being built out. It's also much more manic of of timetable than your typical large build, which means lots of tasty overtime. And then after all that, all the blood and guts of the place require a whole new crew of technicians and tradesmen to get everything up and going properly, again on a manic timetable, requiring a staggering amount of people going in and out of the place for upwards of a year or more.

Externalities aside, all that can do amazing things to a place's local economy, long before they even turn the lineups on.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:35 AM (Ot/FD)

109 > Have no dog in the fight but I think Claude was smart in aiming at coding as a specialty niche to differentiate itself from Open AI or Grok even.

Have you tried Grok Code?

It's now better than Claude, IMO.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:35 AM (IG3/x)

110 Oh good. A young woman just won a car on 'The Price is Right.' Good for her.

Some guy also won an Af4ican Safari. $27,000. Damn. That must be the not get raped and killed package.

Posted by: Stateless - keeping 15 year Ralphy happy and alive. Puppy at heart at August 12, 2026 11:36 AM (Sco7b)

111 This circular financing is crazy. Creating debt instruments on equipment that depreciates quickly is a recipe for disaster.

Posted by: WisRich at August 12, 2026 11:36 AM (G0vdT)

112
"When AGI arrived, it came with a pair of fake tits"
@charliebcurran

https://tinyurl.com/2uyka4w7
Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 11:33 AM (rbvCR)

HI HO!!!! KERMIT the FROG here.......

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:36 AM (2YhKe)

113 They will fund it with traffic tickets from all the cameras

Posted by: fd at August 12, 2026 11:37 AM (ywXg9)

114 89 its as if they think AI will cure cancer, eliminate disease and death and bring about whirled peas.

Crime will be eliminated with my cameras.

Posted by: Flock CEO at August 12, 2026 11:37 AM (4g5V+)

115 108 Another angle to the whole story is the sheer number of jobs it's creating/sustaining. Building a data factory isn't quite like any other construction project. It's obviously trades-intensive while the shell is being built out. It's also much more manic of of timetable than your typical large build, which means lots of tasty overtime. And then after all that, all the blood and guts of the place require a whole new crew of technicians and tradesmen to get everything up and going properly, again on a manic timetable, requiring a staggering amount of people going in and out of the place for upwards of a year or more.

Externalities aside, all that can do amazing things to a place's local economy, long before they even turn the lineups on.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:35 AM (Ot/FD)

It is ultimately temporary though. We're not building permanent cities in the Permian basin where datacenters are going up. Municipalities that treat it as a new normal will screw up their budgets.

Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 11:37 AM (okun6)

116 Google with Gemini, and SpaceX have other income streams that neither Claude or Open AI have. Personally, in the wreckage, I would buy Apple stock above any of them because they stayed out of the AI shitshow and they have the cash to buy the shell of any AI company that crashes out.

Interesting, and agreed.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:38 AM (Riz8t)

117 106 And just when all these companies think they've got AI squared away, quantum computing will start coming online.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 12, 2026 11:34 AM (g8Ew

I'm hoping for a future where quantum computing doesn't replace traditional ones and zeros, but seamlessly integrates with it, coupling the freedom and speed of qbits with the merciless determinism of the logic gate. A best of both worlds kind of approach.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:38 AM (Ot/FD)

118 113 They will fund it with traffic tickets from all the cameras
Posted by: fd at August 12, 2026 11:37 AM (ywXg9)

Yeah, about that.

Posted by: Texas Transportation Code at August 12, 2026 11:38 AM (4g5V+)

119
Circa 1975, an abandoned Dallas area shopping mall was where they shot the movie “Logan’s Run”.
Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:35 AM (4g5V+)

Why use an abandoned mall?

Posted by: The Blues Brothers at August 12, 2026 11:38 AM (2YhKe)

120 It will be just like when the plasma TV was king for years and all of a sudden the LCD TV's came on the market cheaper better and they lasted longer.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at August 12, 2026 11:18 AM (cpFbA)

Plasmas were pushed out the market by guess what, an LCD lobby who got California to pass "environmental' laws that effectively made it illegal to sell them. Amazing what the Left gets away with an even we who are in touch have no idea. Imagine what the low fo's know. NOTHING

Posted by: ... at August 12, 2026 11:39 AM (asFP3)

121 Circa 1975, an abandoned Dallas area shopping mall was where they shot the movie “Logan’s Run”.

It still takes me aback when I realize that 1975 was 51 years ago. I remember 1975 very well.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:39 AM (Riz8t)

122 "The accounting treatment itself is in fashion. But what if one of these companies was a house of cards and was propping itself up with this accounting treatment?" said Tom Selling, technical accounting consultant. "To me, that's the risk."

I just had a PTSD moment from my days at Enron although I left before the great implosion. Just seeing SPV gives me the vapors.

Posted by: TxAnn at August 12, 2026 11:40 AM (SjAWL)

123 And the Big Five hyperscalers are holding, by some estimates, around $1.5 trillion dollars' worth of debt"

Is that a lot?

/ nearly $40 Trillion Dollar debt

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 11:40 AM (cGjQu)

124 Should I sell my tulip bulbs and beanie babies?

Buy the dip!

Posted by: Oddbob at August 12, 2026 11:40 AM (vTZFs)

125
Should I sell my tulip bulbs and beanie babies?
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (Cqx++)

Yes. Reinvest the proceeds into baseball cards and other pro sports memorabilia.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at August 12, 2026 11:40 AM (iqcvy)

126 122 "The accounting treatment itself is in fashion. But what if one of these companies was a house of cards and was propping itself up with this accounting treatment?" said Tom Selling, technical accounting consultant. "To me, that's the risk."

I just had a PTSD moment from my days at Enron although I left before the great implosion. Just seeing SPV gives me the vapors.

The time to buy is NOW!!!

Posted by: Jim Cramer at August 12, 2026 11:41 AM (Riz8t)

127 It is ultimately temporary though. We're not building permanent cities in the Permian basin where datacenters are going up. Municipalities that treat it as a new normal will screw up their budgets.
Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 11:37 AM (okun6)

It has to be a shock to a town council rolling in the revenue when the ribbon is finally cut and that horde of thousands of people buying stuff and paying for tolls and parking and whatnot on their corporate cards suddenly drops to a few dozen employees who keep the lights on and sit in a chair silencing alarms without looking at what they were for (and then get fired for doing that).

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:41 AM (Ot/FD)

128 There's nothing more amusing, in a black humor way, than seeing some tard ranting about "data centers" on Facebook or X.

Just where do you think your rant is being stored, Skippy?
Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:30 AM (IG3/x)

They're the same ones who thought putting a post about "you can't use my pictures that I posted on the public forum because I put these words in my feed" dumbshittery.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:41 AM (2YhKe)

129 ...would work.

Damn brain.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:41 AM (2YhKe)

130 And the Big Five hyperscalers are holding, by some estimates, around $1.5 trillion dollars' worth of debt"

Is that a lot?

Assuming 5% interest, that's $75B a year in JUST interest. So no.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:42 AM (Riz8t)

131 To pay off successfully, the frontrunners need to be able to charge premium prices for what underneath the hood looks mostly like a commodity product. If we see signs of customers being locked into one AI model or another that's possible, but at present people are just routing tasks to whatever is cheapest to complete a task.
Posted by: Red Turban Someguy
=====
Good point. But I think the tech execs involved are believing in the network effect where you have just one dominant company and the rest are rounding errors rather than an oligopoly. Probably driven in part by the example of social media. That model may not apply here at all for AI because good enough might beat the most expensive. Could be the auto mfg should be the AI company model.

I also think some of them think that by hyperscaling, we get to AGI that way rather than simply rebranded machine learning. AGI is indeed a Vernor Vinge singularity event.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:43 AM (E4rtv)

132 The local Boy Scout council, after going nearly bankrupt because they let the gays have their way with them, had to sell the scout camp they had owned for about 100 years. Now the developer who bought it wants to put up a data center there and the neighbors are pissed. I would be too. The old scout camp was a beautiful place, with lakes and trails and all the stuff a proper scout camp should have.

Posted by: fd at August 12, 2026 11:43 AM (ywXg9)

133 Time to crash

Posted by: Cow Demon at August 12, 2026 11:43 AM (4g5V+)

134 130 And the Big Five hyperscalers are holding, by some estimates, around $1.5 trillion dollars' worth of debt"

Is that a lot?

Assuming 5% interest, that's $75B a year in JUST interest. So no.
Posted by: Archimedes
=======
For size, the American Student Loan debt is about the same size 1.5 trillion or so. Yet no one frets much about the coming financial collapse of higher ed in part due to issues like AI, inferior product being sold as premium, etc.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:44 AM (E4rtv)

135 It will be just like when the plasma TV was king for years and all of a sudden the LCD TV's came on the market cheaper better and they lasted longer.

LCDs still have a worse picture than plasma. You have to go OLED and pay "real TV" money to match plasma.

Posted by: Ian S. at August 12, 2026 11:45 AM (2ocoG)

136 Remember:

Garbage in, garbage out is still a thing.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:45 AM (2YhKe)

137 This data centers' excess capacity should lower the cost for cloud storage and personal domains.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at August 12, 2026 11:45 AM (sIhl1)

138 There's nothing more amusing, in a black humor way, than seeing some tard ranting about "data centers" on Facebook or X.

Just where do you think your rant is being stored, Skippy?

And who do you think is giving you "likes", real people?

Posted by: t-bird at August 12, 2026 11:46 AM (5FKHw)

139 The local Boy Scout council, after going nearly bankrupt because they let the gays have their way with them, had to sell the scout camp they had owned for about 100 years. Now the developer who bought it wants to put up a data center there and the neighbors are pissed. I would be too. The old scout camp was a beautiful place, with lakes and trails and all the stuff a proper scout camp should have.
Posted by: fd at August 12, 2026 11:43 AM (ywXg9)

Once again, everything the left touches turns to shit.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at August 12, 2026 11:46 AM (g8Ew8)

140 132 The local Boy Scout council, after going nearly bankrupt because they let the gays have their way with them, had to sell the scout camp they had owned for about 100 years. Now the developer who bought it wants to put up a data center there and the neighbors are pissed. I would be too. The old scout camp was a beautiful place, with lakes and trails and all the stuff a proper scout camp should have.
Posted by: fd
======
Some of the people putting datacenters in places like that are not doing it for economic reasons is my guess. Like Muzzies putting mosques as markers for conquest.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:46 AM (E4rtv)

141
LCDs still have a worse picture than plasma. You have to go OLED and pay "real TV" money to match plasma.
Posted by: Ian S. at August 12, 2026 11:45 AM (2ocoG)

The worst thing about plasma TV's is you need to run your A/C during the winter when watching one.

Them f*cking things run HOT.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 11:46 AM (2YhKe)

142 A couple of AI generated viruses, not real ones, but models of them have been examined and determined to be nothing ever seen in nature, yet plausible.

Someone's going to take this, and go all Fauci on it, then turn it loose.

It's not going to be robots that kill us. It'll be some smart ass in a fucking lab coat.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at August 12, 2026 11:46 AM (2Cry5)

143 Ok, who are The Big Five Hyperscalers?

Posted by: And what's their best album? at August 12, 2026 11:46 AM (2Ez/1)

144 Leftist in Austin hate data centers because of the "environmental impact" and effects on quality of life. But mainly it's about water usage and then energy usage. It's a huge issue here. Plus Elon Musk is big, big double bad. In fact he's the devil incarnate!!!😈 ///

Posted by: lin-duh at August 12, 2026 11:47 AM (EneHm)

145 Whether it's Enron risk-hedging with SPEs, or these AI players doing it with SPVs, or FTX ventilating its holdings through Alameda, it's all the same type of scheme.

They've been pulling these scams off for years.

Remember when you were 7, and your female friends would solemnly declare that they didn't fart or sweat?

Would you believe it from them 30 years later?

That's what this is.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at August 12, 2026 11:47 AM (BI5O2)

146 To pay off successfully, the frontrunners need to be able to charge premium prices for what underneath the hood looks mostly like a commodity product. If we see signs of customers being locked into one AI model or another that's possible, but at present people are just routing tasks to whatever is cheapest to complete a task.

I route tasks to whichever model is the best at something. GPT-5.6 writes the cleanest code, Claude is the best at actually running and debugging, and Grok 4.5 can do both but not quite as well. But it's sufficiently cheaper enough that lower-grade tasks get pushed its way. Elon said 4.6 will be out this week, should be interesting.

Posted by: Ian S. at August 12, 2026 11:47 AM (2ocoG)

147 horde of thousands of people buying stuff and paying for tolls and parking and whatnot on their corporate cards suddenly drops"

"Hey, XOM is moving here! Raise all the prices!

/Spring, TX - 2015

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 11:48 AM (cGjQu)

148 And in the process, they are killing the home pc market, the used PC market and the gaming community. Yhis is actually more like the telco bubble in that they are building physical things.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at August 12, 2026 11:48 AM (bkuEU)

149 127 It is ultimately temporary though. We're not building permanent cities in the Permian basin where datacenters are going up. Municipalities that treat it as a new normal will screw up their budgets.
Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 11:37 AM (okun6)

It has to be a shock to a town council rolling in the revenue when the ribbon is finally cut and that horde of thousands of people buying stuff and paying for tolls and parking and whatnot on their corporate cards suddenly drops to a few dozen employees who keep the lights on and sit in a chair silencing alarms without looking at what they were for (and then get fired for doing that).

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:41 AM (Ot/FD)

I expect this to be the worst in rural areas, where the impact will be proportionally higher. Community centers and bigger staff they won't be able to afford long run.

Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 11:48 AM (okun6)

150 Real nailbiter today

DOJ has until 12:59 AM eastern to get a filing in *and approved* to continue the stay on an injunction, or else suppressors, SBRs, and SBSs are effectively no longer governed by the NFA.

The injunction went in a week ago with a 1 week stay to let DOJ appeal it. It isn't blanket nationwide, but applies to all current and future members of several 2A groups and customers of Silencershop, PSA, and a few others.

This is a really big deal. Lot of dudes waiting for the deadline with parts and tools, much like when the federal AWB expired in 2004.

Posted by: heya at August 12, 2026 11:48 AM (23NNO)

151 144 Leftist in Austin hate data centers because of the "environmental impact" and effects on quality of life. But mainly it's about water usage and then energy usage. It's a huge issue here. Plus Elon Musk is big, big double bad. In fact he's the devil incarnate!!!😈 ///
Posted by: lin-duh at August 12, 2026 11:47 AM (EneHm)

Disguise it as one kick ass huge mosque.

Posted by: Stateless - keeping 15 year Ralphy happy and alive. Puppy at heart at August 12, 2026 11:49 AM (Sco7b)

152 138 There's nothing more amusing, in a black humor way, than seeing some tard ranting about "data centers" on Facebook or X.

Just where do you think your rant is being stored, Skippy?

And who do you think is giving you "likes", real people?
Posted by: t-bird
======
Increasingly the whole internet datastream is being dehumanized as it ain't humans driving the demand directly anymore but computers talking to other computers using agents aka bots.

Humans are merely becoming just a set of inputs into increasingly sophisticated algorithms that do everything from demand curve based pricing on the fly to self driving cars.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:49 AM (E4rtv)

153 Some of the people putting datacenters in places like that are not doing it for economic reasons is my guess. Like Muzzies putting mosques as markers for conquest.
Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:46 AM (E4rtv)

Once upon a time you could buy a company car and a plot of land for the future development site of the business, and then when the plans fell through, someone got the property and the car in the settlement, and often that was the guy who arranged to buy them, negotiated the failure, and got it in kind as a settlement for all his valiant work.

Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 11:49 AM (rbvCR)

154 106 And just when all these companies think they've got AI squared away, quantum computing will start coming online.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons

They'll square both of it away when they realize the obviousness of the course
-- AI, like Soylent Green will be made out of People.

Body parts and bio-organioids, at present, moving up the foodchain chain to your pocket-book.

this is the cTHIEL future more frightening and deadly than ctHILLARY. JD and mELON-head have to throw down against the cTHIELian cohorts: cthKARP, cthLUCKEY, cthANDURIL while they still can and they will forever demonstrate worthiness of higher office (and prior offences) in comparison to the unmitigated evil(s) at stake.

Why?
Because Greater Evil always destroy its maker

What's the Lesser Evil these Days?
It's BECOME too hard to tell!

IceKingJOE: Build Back Better?
DSA: Build BORG Better

-- One Mind, One Purpose, One Future.
Resistance is NOT futile because Impedance is Real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa8ZNyL-kxk

Posted by: MANFRED the Heat Seeking OBOE at August 12, 2026 11:49 AM (d+bIu)

155 AI will never become "conscious" no matter how many fever dreams they have about it. That's not how consciousness works.

Posted by: ... at August 12, 2026 11:49 AM (asFP3)

156 Leftist in Austin hate data centers because ... they've been told to. That's a switch from a couple of years ago...

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 11:50 AM (cGjQu)

157 A recent article I saw stated that if a $200 per month subscription to ChatGpt were fully utilized, it would cost OpenAI upwards of $14K to provide the service. Until the service is profitable, just getting a bigger truck (ie: Data Center), ain't gonna solve the problem.

Posted by: AlecK at August 12, 2026 11:50 AM (cMlC1)

158 Trump and his billionaire friends want data centers
F the plebs

Posted by: Paul at August 12, 2026 11:50 AM (yKi7k)

159
It will be just like when the plasma TV was king for years and all of a sudden the LCD TV's came on the market cheaper better and they lasted longer.

LCDs still have a worse picture than plasma. You have to go OLED and pay "real TV" money to match plasma.
Posted by: Ian S. at August 12, 2026 11:45 AM (2ocoG)

OLED is cheap these days.

You can get a great OLED with an awesome picture in a huge size and a very nice sound set up for what you would payed for a mediocre LCD 5 years ago, if you wait for the right sale.

Did I mention that capitalism and the free market is awesome? No? Well, it is!!!

Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:50 AM (iJfKG)

160 Data wasn't even a good character. He doesn't deserve all these centers.

Posted by: rumpus room at August 12, 2026 11:51 AM (Ealv7)

161 > suddenly drops to a few dozen employees who keep the lights on and sit in a chair silencing alarms without looking at what they were for (and then get fired for doing that).

Posted by: Warai-otoko at August 12, 2026 11:41 AM (Ot/FD)

The increase in the property tax base will be some compensation.

Having an extra half billion in taxable property could make a real difference for Bum Fuck, Nebraska.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:51 AM (IG3/x)

162 ***The information is there, but finding it requires more work than if Meta, for example, borrowed directly to finance the build out,
---

But wouldn't borrowing directly be a more expensive way to do it?

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at August 12, 2026 11:51 AM (VQ0bX)

163 The Internet is dead.

Posted by: It's all bots at August 12, 2026 11:51 AM (2Ez/1)

164 Posted by: Paul at August 12, 2026 11:50 AM (yKi7k)

You DICK!!!!

Posted by: Jeff Spicoli at August 12, 2026 11:51 AM (2YhKe)

165 For size, the American Student Loan debt is about the same size 1.5 trillion or so. Yet no one frets much about the coming financial collapse of higher ed "

This.

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 11:52 AM (cGjQu)

166 It still takes me aback when I realize that 1975 was 51 years ago. I remember 1975 very well.

Posted by: Archimedes at August 12, 2026 11:39 AM

I graduated high school in 75 and shipped to Army boot camp that summer.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at August 12, 2026 11:52 AM (cpFbA)

167
Posted by: Paul at August 12, 2026 11:50 AM (yKi7k)

Being a Mom's-basement living, envious, weasely, little troll is no way to go through life, son.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:52 AM (iJfKG)

168 For size, the American Student Loan debt is about the same size 1.5 trillion or so. Yet no one frets much about the coming financial collapse of higher ed "

This.

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 11:52 AM

They just write it off Jerry.......

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at August 12, 2026 11:52 AM (cpFbA)

169 Fascinating discussion, Joe.

I have no idea no the hyperscalers will eventually get paid. I use ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Codex etc for free…. My employer is really pushing AI and have their own internal version of ChatGPT (which is actually surprisingly useful)…. I get month end reports on my token usage but I pay ZERO. Who’s actually paying for these things right now? I can’t imagine a world where Joe and Jane consumer pony up a monthly fee to use…

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 12, 2026 11:53 AM (zEBE+)

170 I think Plasma is still better than OLED although I saw a Sony that kind of floored me. You still get these awful "trails" on OLED.

Posted by: ... at August 12, 2026 11:53 AM (asFP3)

171 The Internet is dead.
Posted by: It's all bots at August 12, 2026 11:51 AM (2Ez/1)
----
Well at least we can't be blamed for that...

Posted by: It's all ads at August 12, 2026 11:53 AM (FZ29D)

172 The Internet is dead.

Posted by: It's all bots at August 12, 2026 11:51 AM (2Ez/1)

No it's not.

Posted by: Bot from NSA at August 12, 2026 11:54 AM (asFP3)

173 88 Bubbles won't burst, if you have a dependable Bubble Machine.
Posted by: Lawrence Welk Groupie at August 12, 2026 11:29 AM (JM9I6)

*pawbump*

Posted by: Robot Monster at August 12, 2026 11:54 AM (PiwSw)

174 Posted by: Bot from NSA at August 12, 2026 11:54 AM

*golf clap*

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 12, 2026 11:55 AM (bFu5X)

175 A golf course uses about four times the water as a data center (more than that, if the data center is recirculating the same water), and takes up approximately the same amount of land.

But for some reason we don't see massive anti-golf course protests.

Strange, innit?

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:55 AM (IG3/x)

176
The increase in the property tax base will be some compensation.

Having an extra half billion in taxable property could make a real difference for Bum Fuck, Nebraska.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:51 AM

The downside to all of that extra tax $$$$ is they draw large amounts of power and water and in places like the DFW metro plex where they are building these things like crazy there is no extra capacity for any utilities. Everything is pretty much already maxxed out yet they keep handing out building permits.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at August 12, 2026 11:55 AM (cpFbA)

177 This sounds like Enron or FTX debt-structuring schemes.

Arthur Andersen went under with Enron because other firms independently exposed their complicity.

FTX shared the same advantage as Big AI has now: no reliable auditing.

All these modern firms benefit from the new system, since the MBS/CDO collapse a decade later, which is that debt is now valued arbitrarily.

But they still keep going under anyway, because Renfield Accounting can only cover for so much, and then you get a stake through your heart.
-------

I know my limitations when it comes to conversations of this type, but I'm not sure how GAAP squares with the assertion that Meta (in the Beignet example) would be legally required to cough-up any shortage in a liquidation scenario? IF that's the case, how can that NOT be a "liability" in balance sheet terms?

Posted by: Crusader, Former Federal Bank Examiner at August 12, 2026 11:55 AM (TN0g+)

178 148 And in the process, they are killing the home pc market, the used PC market and the gaming community. Yhis is actually more like the telco bubble in that they are building physical things.
Posted by: Notsothoreau

Yes, because those only gave companies a single digit sales increase rather than being able to front a massive IPO with untold billions for the insiders.

My guess is Oracle and the Ellisons are going to be one of the casualties, Microsoft to the extent that they are now actively cannibalizing their own sacrosanct product lines is another, can't tell on Google which probably has its own Android half of cellphones to feed, and then Apple which stayed out of the muck and can afford to buy the survivor(s) of the shakeout probably. SpaceX is difficult to tell as Elon is using one part of the company to build demand as a customer for other parts of the company. Not the same as pureplay AI like Claude or Open AI.

Nvidia though is a company that I would probably short--they bet the farm on AI production leaving AMD in the dust but AMD and Intel might get the last laugh there. Intel pulled out of serious AI after its AI oriented CPUs failed badly.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:56 AM (E4rtv)

179 The wit and wisdom of Hasan Piker.

Remember when Hasan Piker said this?

“I wipe my ass with the Constitution, it’s a f*cking piece of paper, motherf*ck the Constitution and motherf*ck this country”

Imagine saying this and still being treated like a serious political voice

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fear Me! at August 12, 2026 11:56 AM (ndZc7)

180 Bubbles won't burst, if you have a dependable Bubble Machine.
Posted by: Lawrence Welk Groupie"

That's nothing.

/Whipped Cream and Other Delights

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 11:56 AM (cGjQu)

181 I am working on my own project and do pay for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Grok. Free Gemini has done TONS of stuff for me.

They're good and useful. And I'm doing something I'd never be able to do on my own. But wow, they aren't the miracle I was led to believe.

I learned a lot though.

Posted by: Stateless - keeping 15 year Ralphy happy and alive. Puppy at heart at August 12, 2026 11:56 AM (Sco7b)

182 Andrew Weissmann, was the lead prosecutor in the ENRON case.
That tells more about the prosecution than the so called crime.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at August 12, 2026 11:57 AM (VQ0bX)

183 > applies to all current and future members of several 2A groups

GOA is one.

As I understand it, you don't even have to be a pre-existing member.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:57 AM (IG3/x)

184
Leftist in Austin hate data centers because of the "environmental impact" and effects on quality of life. But mainly it's about water usage and then energy usage. It's a huge issue here. Plus Elon Musk is big, big double bad. In fact he's the devil incarnate!!!😈 ///
Posted by: lin-duh at August 12, 2026 11:47 AM (EneHm)

In Austin, "quality of life" are magic anger words for the leftard, when they really have nothing rational to complain about.

It's been the same for decades.

Saad.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 12, 2026 11:57 AM (iJfKG)

185 I know my limitations when it comes to conversations of this type, but I'm not sure how GAAP squares with the assertion that Meta (in the Beignet example) would be legally required to cough-up any shortage in a liquidation scenario? IF that's the case, how can that NOT be a "liability" in balance sheet terms?
Posted by: Crusader

I think we are all guessing because it depends on contract language between partners and exactly how those would be interpreted should the shakeout occur. The financial crisis ended up with the big banks skating on much of their implied liability and getting bailed out for the rest in 2008-9. I can see the big companies with the clout doing the same here--like Meta. Investors are the disposable ones here, not the companies.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 11:58 AM (E4rtv)

186 Enron?

*shifty eyes*

"On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution."

Posted by: Paul Krugman at August 12, 2026 11:58 AM (PiwSw)

187 Death of home PC market means less horsepower for the plebes to open source AI and compete with the big boys.

FNAB

Posted by: ... at August 12, 2026 11:59 AM (asFP3)

188 TBH pretty sure I did not understand the essay.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at August 12, 2026 11:59 AM (JvZF+)

189
I know my limitations when it comes to conversations of this type, but I'm not sure how GAAP squares with the assertion that Meta (in the Beignet example) would be legally required to cough-up any shortage in a liquidation scenario? IF that's the case, how can that NOT be a "liability" in balance sheet terms?

Posted by: Crusader, Former Federal Bank Examiner at August 12, 2026 11:55 AM (TN0g+)

It's a contingent liability on something that may not occur.

Financial derivatives used for hedging for instance do not show up in liabilities. The actual required payout on them is unknown until events play out.

Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 11:59 AM (okun6)

190 Not Nancy's fault!

Nancy Pelosi claims she didn't know Biden was mentally declining:

“I saw him maybe 3 times that whole year…so I didn't know. But I do think those who did know should have acted upon that information…whoever knew.”

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fear Me! at August 12, 2026 11:59 AM (ndZc7)

191 A golf course uses about four times the water as a data center (more than that, if the data center is recirculating the same water), and takes up approximately the same amount of land.

But for some reason we don't see massive anti-golf course protests.

Strange, innit?

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:55 AM

Biggest wastes of space. Those and cemeteries!

Posted by: Al Czervik at August 12, 2026 11:59 AM (bFu5X)

192 In Austin, "quality of life" are magic anger words for the leftard, when they really have nothing rational to complain about."

People in Allendale still have those stupid signs up...

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:00 PM (cGjQu)

193 In Austin, "quality of life" are magic anger words for the leftard, when they really have nothing rational to complain about.

It's been the same for decades.

Saad.
Posted by: naturalfake

Yes, a datacenter is notably inferior at quality of life than having drug addled hoboes in public places, thieves requiring all products to be locked up at stores, teen takeovers, and random minorities attacking white people with lethal menace in the streets. Oh, and food trucks.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 12:00 PM (E4rtv)

194 >>You still get these awful "trails" on OLED.

Nothing that a set of Monster HDMI cables can't fix. They are totally worth the extra cost above inferior HDMI cables, which are all of them not made by Monster.

Posted by: Best Buy salesperson at August 12, 2026 12:01 PM (J4Dwc)

195 I often wonder if AI is going to do to us what it did to the Krell.

Posted by: BeckoningChasm at August 12, 2026 12:01 PM (CHHv1)

196 The actual required payout on them is unknown until events play out."

So, gambling.

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:01 PM (cGjQu)

197 169 Fascinating discussion, Joe.

I have no idea no the hyperscalers will eventually get paid. I use ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Codex etc for free…. My employer is really pushing AI and have their own internal version of ChatGPT (which is actually surprisingly useful)…. I get month end reports on my token usage but I pay ZERO. Who’s actually paying for these things right now? I can’t imagine a world where Joe and Jane consumer pony up a monthly fee to use…
Posted by: LinusVanPelt

Imagine the day of workshare where Joe and Jane rent out their consciousness -- Movie: Johnny Mnemonic , Electric State

Guess who's vacuuming up all the ideas and goals you input into this system? -- cthKARP
Guess who's survielance systems will "keep you safe" -- cthANDURIL
Guess who's really paying the bill -- cTHEIL, but the real ones we never see, inventing the world where all service them without ever knowing they live in their prison.

That's who's paying the bill.

LET's GO BRANDON!
Take a Chance; Free the World!
Indict Brennan, freeCUBA, finish the LIBs.
https://tinyurl.com/forWARd-signedSCHWARTZWALD

Posted by: MANFRED the Heat Seeking OBOE at August 12, 2026 12:01 PM (IvAzk)

198 Yes, a datacenter is notably inferior at quality of life than having drug addled hoboes in public places, thieves requiring all products to be locked up at stores, teen takeovers, and random minorities attacking white people with lethal menace in the streets. Oh, and food trucks.
Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 12:00 PM (E4rtv)

Well, seriously, who is saying we can't have both?

Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 12:02 PM (rbvCR)

199 >>>Arthur Andersen went under with Enron because ...
---

The government wanted scalps.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at August 12, 2026 12:02 PM (VQ0bX)

200 Noon news

CBC - endless Canadian Wildfires
CNN - Crowley
MS Now - Pirro convenes special grand jury. Reflecting pool I guess

FoxNews - Outnumbered - crazy socialists

Posted by: Stateless - keeping 15 year Ralphy happy and alive. Puppy at heart at August 12, 2026 12:02 PM (Sco7b)

201
This data centers' excess capacity should lower the cost for cloud storage and personal domains.
Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at August 12, 2026 11:45 AM (sIhl1)

Should.

But it won't. At least, not for unregulated cloud storage. At some point, the datacenters are going to start screening all of our data and deleting anything that the commies don't like, but the first step will be in charging premiums for unscreened cloud storage. And your unscreened storage will be on the shittiest hard drives that risk data loss, not to mention the access times will suffer.

Eventually, the unscreened storage will go away and your "private" data will be screened and cleaned up as they "improve performance".

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at August 12, 2026 12:03 PM (iqcvy)

202 Oh, and food trucks."

And voodoo donuts. And expensive IPAs

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:03 PM (cGjQu)

203 Excellent article, Mannix.

Have free cash to pick up once in a generation bargains after the bubble bursts.

Posted by: Comrade Flounder, Disinformation Demon at August 12, 2026 12:04 PM (dK+Kv)

204 Schism in the administration.

LMAO! Marco Rubio just dropped this hilarious response to Sec. RFK Jr.'s diet

Q: Have you adopted RFK's diet of red meat and fermented vegetables?

RUBIO: "No! This is a CRAZY diet. This is a diet that consists of eating sauerkraut and meat. Now you understand like this is not a sustainable thing. He has to travel with coolers of sauerkraut!"

"I'm not going to travel the world with a cooler full of sauerkraut. It's ridiculous. I can't do it!"

Q: Are you MAHA?

RUBIO: "I'm in favor of MAHA. Like I think people should be healthy."

JEANETTE: No, he's not.

Q: What's he eat?

JEANETTE: Pop-Tarts!

RUBIO: The Pop-Tart is one of the great American innovations in the history of the world.

-
He's got my vote!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fear Me! at August 12, 2026 12:04 PM (ndZc7)

205 Hong's supporters have decided that "Election Fraud" is responsible for her loss.

This is going to be epic.

Posted by: Washington Nearsider: Gotterdammerung at August 12, 2026 12:04 PM (AdHga)

206 Nancy Pelosi claims she didn't know Biden was mentally declining:

“I saw him maybe 3 times that whole year…so I didn't know. But I do think those who did know should have acted upon that information…whoever knew.”

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fear Me! at August 12, 2026 11:59 AM (ndZc7)

Lying c*nt whore.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 12:04 PM (2YhKe)

207 Have free cash to pick up once in a generation bargains after the bubble bursts."

What's "cash"?

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:05 PM (cGjQu)

208 >Imagine saying this and still being treated like a serious political voice

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fear Me! at August 12, 2026 11:56 AM (ndZc7)

But he's so dreamy!

~Rolling Stone

Posted by: Heavy Meta at August 12, 2026 12:05 PM (GTqXr)

209 Hong's supporters have decided that "Election Fraud" is responsible for her loss.

This is going to be epic.
-----

Popcorn!

Posted by: Crusader at August 12, 2026 12:05 PM (TN0g+)

210 >>>Arthur Andersen went under with Enron because ...
---

What. Me worry?

Posted by: Paul Krugman at August 12, 2026 12:06 PM (2YhKe)

211 187 Death of home PC market means less horsepower for the plebes to open source AI and compete with the big boys.

FNAB
Posted by: ...
=======
Eh, run OpenSeek on an old computer and you will get somewhere around 80-90 percent of the performance of frontier models. It is the frontier models that demand those new datacenters as the existing models are superceded by the newest ones. They repeatedly use the training data from the older model to train the new one plus any other data they can scrounge (now getting into old product manuals, old reference books, etc. territory).

Think Johnny Five in Short Circuit with the need for more 'input'.

Kind of like how the TV market settled out--you could pay through the nose for the bleeding edge with all its problems or wait about 2-3 years for those bleeding edge models to be faster, cheaper, etc. on sale at Walmart. Same for the PC market--you pay for bleeding edge. Noticed something with the auto market in a report, customers are now turning away from premium cars as the amenities in the new standard models have made things like heated seats, data displays, safety additives into things rolled into std. models. Not premium anymore

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 12:06 PM (E4rtv)

212 A golf course uses about four times the water as a data center (more than that, if the data center is recirculating the same water), and takes up approximately the same amount of land.

But for some reason we don't see massive anti-golf course protests.

Strange, innit?

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:55 AM

I believe golf is losing popularity. First off, Tiger Woods is no longer active…. He was a HUGE draw to the sport in his heyday. I used to play golf nearly every weekend but in the last 10 years I’ve barely played…. I’ve noticed several courses I used to frequent are now gone… replaced by avacado groves or other farmland or in at least one case it’s now a place where you can pay to go hunting (in Michigan). Then the dust up between PGA and LIV alienated casual viewers. The whole thing is boring now

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 12, 2026 12:06 PM (zEBE+)

213 But he's so dreamy!"

Smoldering intensity and swarthy looks.
White chick bait.

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:07 PM (cGjQu)

214

New Orleans began using AI this spring for non-emergency calls coming to its 311 line and is now rolling it out to an agency that takes about 1,000 calls per day.

Carbyne’s AI Emergency Call Triage, for example, sends what it thinks are multiple calls for one incident to an AI bot. They get an AI response if they are calling about a previously reported incident, but are transferred to a human if they are not.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at August 12, 2026 12:07 PM (Cqx++)

215 He's got my vote!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fear Me! at August 12, 2026 12:04 PM (ndZc7)

JD Vance is losing weight. I think Usha is showing him "Fat JD" memes and giving him significant looks.

Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 12:08 PM (rbvCR)

216 Q: What's he eat?

JEANETTE: Pop-Tarts!

RUBIO: The Pop-Tart is one of the great American innovations in the history of the world.

A rare misstep from Rubio. Pop-Tarts are vile.

Posted by: far cry at August 12, 2026 12:08 PM (LSV6F)

217
I believe golf is losing popularity. First off, Tiger Woods is no longer active…. He was a HUGE draw to the sport in his heyday. I used to play golf nearly every weekend but in the last 10 years I’ve barely played…. I’ve noticed several courses I used to frequent are now gone… replaced by avacado groves or other farmland or in at least one case it’s now a place where you can pay to go hunting (in Michigan). Then the dust up between PGA and LIV alienated casual viewers. The whole thing is boring now
Posted by: LinusVanPelt at August 12, 2026 12:06 PM (zEBE+)

The Myrtle Beach area has closed over 100 courses in the last several years.

Most are being turned into housing projects.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 12:08 PM (2YhKe)

218 The pop-up ads seem to have lessened today?

Posted by: Crusader at August 12, 2026 12:08 PM (TN0g+)

219 New Orleans began using AI this spring for non-emergency calls"

That's rayciss!

/demographic of city employees

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:09 PM (cGjQu)

220 AOC takes the next step.

AOC Has Her Boyfriend Frozen In Case She Wants Him In The Future

-
From the Bee.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fear Me! at August 12, 2026 12:10 PM (ndZc7)

221 Musk will put DCs in space with unlimited solar and no water//cooling issues.

Smart. Thats why he is a trillionaire.

Posted by: Field Marshal Zhukov at August 12, 2026 12:10 PM (bX16E)

222 218 The pop-up ads seem to have lessened today?
Posted by: Crusader at August 12, 2026 12:08 PM (TN0g

They sure haven't. Every refresh.

Posted by: POP UPS SUCK at August 12, 2026 12:10 PM (XQ1sx)

223 I'm still AI skeptical...which is ironic as I just got in charge of using Claude for Test Automation at work.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at August 12, 2026 12:10 PM (xcxpd)

224 I believe golf is losing popularity"

Everything has peaks and valleys.

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:11 PM (cGjQu)

225 Datacenters still have humans. Humans are still stupid. I received this message from the DC I support yesterday:

We recently determined that an unauthorized actor obtained an employee’s credentials through social engineering and used those credentials to access certain business systems available to the employee’s account, including our CRM platform. We immediately secured the account, revoked active sessions, and initiated an investigation.

"Did you fire the dumbass that gave their login info out?!?"

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 12:11 PM (2YhKe)

226 I think a lot of these AI companies believe the government will bail them out.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at August 12, 2026 12:11 PM (xcxpd)

227 196 The actual required payout on them is unknown until events play out."

So, gambling.
Posted by: man
=======
Our vaunted financial markets and insurance are all examples of betting on outcomes. No different than a casino except it is easier to rig a lot of outcomes for financial markets and insurance. Black Jack has specific odds as does Roulette, etc. so you can calculate those to a decimal point.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 12:11 PM (E4rtv)

228 196 "The actual required payout on them is unknown until events play out."

So, gambling.

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:01 PM (cGjQu)

They're structured like a gamble rather than a debt so they don't go on the balance sheet. Similarly a lawsuit doesn't show up unless the expectation is you'll lose and the amount is reasonably estimable.

Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 12:12 PM (okun6)

229 And that scale is another part of the reason. Nobody can afford this.
===================
True.

This reminds me of railroad expansion 150 years ago.

Next year, hyperscalers are estimated to spend an estimated $1.5 trillion in new capital spending, or at least that's an estimate I saw tossed out yesterday. Debt issuance is so huge it starting to crowd out the other big borrower, America, and preventing interest rates from dropping lower. That means debt issuance is so high, it is causing the United States government budget strain. It's incredible.

A friend of mine sold all his stocks and bought physical gold and silver, he's so shocked by the debt levels. Is that the right path? Or will the stock market and general robustness of the economy bail us all out? Who the hell can say.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at August 12, 2026 12:12 PM (OOFuB)

230 The Myrtle Beach area has closed over 100 courses in the last several years.

Most are being turned into housing projects.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 12:08 PM (2YhKe
They will revert to truck farming in the caliphate.

Posted by: Eromero at August 12, 2026 12:12 PM (qsfar)

231 and no water//cooling issues."

So how does cooling work in a near vacuum?

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:12 PM (cGjQu)

232 Musk will put DCs in space with unlimited solar and no water//cooling issues.

Smart. Thats why he is a trillionaire.
Posted by: Field Marshal Zhukov at August 12, 2026 12:10 PM (bX16E)

Maintenance and upkeep becomes MEGA f*cking expensive.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 12:12 PM (2YhKe)

233 Over at GP there is a hysterical vid from the Babylon Bee about the state of New Mexico.

Posted by: Smell the Glove at August 12, 2026 12:13 PM (WOnE5)

234 195 I often wonder if AI is going to do to us what it did to the Krell.

Posted by: BeckoningChasm
---

It was all good until...

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at August 12, 2026 12:13 PM (VQ0bX)

235 231 and no water//cooling issues."

So how does cooling work in a near vacuum?
Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:12 PM (cGjQu)

I was thinking that too....

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at August 12, 2026 12:13 PM (xcxpd)

236 226 I think a lot of these AI companies believe the government will bail them out.
Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards

Possibly. I can see Trump though demanding a stake if it happens in his term like Intel. Not giving them fed money for nothing like Dems or normal GOPe would.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 12:14 PM (E4rtv)

237 Lakers just sold for $12.5 billion after being bought last year for $10 billion.

Posted by: mr tmz at August 12, 2026 12:14 PM (rJ48h)

238 Massachusetts takes the next step.

Massachusetts Legalizes Abortion Up Until Kindergarten

-
From the Bee.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fear Me! at August 12, 2026 12:14 PM (ndZc7)

239 The Myrtle Beach area has closed over 100 courses in the last several years.

Most are being turned into housing projects.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 12:08 PM (2YhKe)

That's sad, but not surprising. I was looking at the MB area myself recently.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at August 12, 2026 12:15 PM (xcxpd)

240 235 231 and no water//cooling issues."

So how does cooling work in a near vacuum?
Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:12 PM (cGjQu)

I was thinking that too....

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at August 12, 2026 12:13 PM (xcxpd)

The hope seems to be to recycle the energy but that's pretty speculative.

Posted by: Red Turban Someguy at August 12, 2026 12:15 PM (okun6)

241 This is about me, isn't it?

Posted by: Solyndra at August 12, 2026 12:15 PM (e2lsi)

242 236 226 I think a lot of these AI companies believe the government will bail them out.
Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards

Possibly. I can see Trump though demanding a stake if it happens in his term like Intel. Not giving them fed money for nothing like Dems or normal GOPe would.
Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 12:14 PM (E4rtv)

I guess that is a least-bad scenario. I don't like bailouts as a general rule. Abominable Intelligences are being misused badly as it is.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at August 12, 2026 12:16 PM (xcxpd)

243 Sponge, his satelites are disposable. The burn up in thee atmosphere in five years, and he still makes money on them.

Posted by: Field Marshal Zhukov at August 12, 2026 12:16 PM (bX16E)

244 So how does cooling work in a near vacuum?

Radiative.

Posted by: t-bird at August 12, 2026 12:16 PM (5FKHw)

245 244 So how does cooling work in a near vacuum?

Sucky.

Posted by: Couldn't resist at August 12, 2026 12:18 PM (2Ez/1)

246 Maintenance and upkeep becomes MEGA f*cking expensive"

Hal, give me the the duct tape...

Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:18 PM (cGjQu)

247 So how does cooling work in a near vacuum?
Posted by: man

Publius or Gref among the nightowls could explain it. Also Pawn. Latter two are real rocket scientists and Publius is of all things physics, a genius.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 12:18 PM (E4rtv)

248 Nood.

Posted by: Nazdar at August 12, 2026 12:19 PM (NcvvS)

249 A golf course uses about four times the water as a data center (more than that, if the data center is recirculating the same water), and takes up approximately the same amount of land.

But for some reason we don't see massive anti-golf course protests.

Strange, innit?

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at August 12, 2026 11:55 AM (IG3/x)
===================
It's the collision between their need for electricity and the green ideal of closing all carbon based energy production. Turbines are noisy and use NatGas. Bad, by definiton.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at August 12, 2026 12:19 PM (ET1ES)

250 NOODlum.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 12:19 PM (2YhKe)

251
That's sad, but not surprising. I was looking at the MB area myself recently.
Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at August 12, 2026 12:15 PM (xcxpd)

Been on golf trips the last few years there. It's not a bad area, TBH.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 12:20 PM (2YhKe)

252 >>>The Myrtle Beach area has closed over 100 courses in the last several years.

Most are being turned into housing projects.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer
---

Obama and Biden had a devastating effect on middle-class with disposable income.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at August 12, 2026 12:21 PM (VQ0bX)

253 So how does cooling work in a near vacuum?

Radiative.
Posted by: t-bird at August 12, 2026 12:16 PM (5FKHw)

Indeed. Point a hot surface towards deep space (away from the sun) and heat will flow away from it. This is the process that makes ice form on puddles under a clear night sky, even though the air temperature does not drop below freezing.

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at August 12, 2026 12:21 PM (InJki)

254 I guess that is a least-bad scenario. I don't like bailouts as a general rule. Abominable Intelligences are being misused badly as it is.
Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards

It is a tool that can work, but most politicians see dollar signs for themselves if they just shovel the money to the bailout. But markets panic and you get irrational get rid of it responses during a panic.

Intel was getting beaten down for example for not making ENOUGH of a profit and predictions that it would fail by short sellers rather than the facts in the matter.

And I think naked short types should be drawn and quartered while being burned at the stake. They are parasites. Want to short, get a stake or borrow it from someone to do so putting your own ass at risk. Naked shorts are simply trying to psychologically beat down the price so you can score cheap profits with little outlay and risk.

Posted by: whig at August 12, 2026 12:23 PM (E4rtv)

255 So how does cooling work in a near vacuum?
Posted by: man at August 12, 2026 12:12 PM (cGjQu)
===================
Is it cooling we are talking about or heat radiation? Obviously in space, radiating heat is no problem. As far as cooling goes, if the satellite is not directly facing the sun it is sitting a few hundred degrees below zero, but much warmer if facing the sun. Right? So cooling might just be a matter of shielding satellites on the day side of orbit, and warming them on the night side. Would that be right?

Posted by: Huck Follywood at August 12, 2026 12:24 PM (FPQLW)

256 "When AGI arrived, it came with a pair of fake tits"
@charliebcurran

https://tinyurl.com/2uyka4w7
Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 11:33 AM (rbvCR)

Snake Plissken? I heard you was dead!

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at August 12, 2026 12:27 PM (/HDaX)

257 Maintenance and upkeep becomes MEGA f*cking expensive.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Cancer at August 12, 2026 12:12 PM (2YhKe)
================
Sponge I think it's just the opposite, zero cost maintenance. The satellites work until their orbit degrades and they burn up in the atmosphere. New satellites replace them, usually more capable ones. Rinse and repeat.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at August 12, 2026 12:28 PM (FPQLW)

258 When AGI arrived, it came with a pair of fake tits"
@charliebcurran

https://tinyurl.com/2uyka4w7
Posted by: Kindltot at August 12, 2026 11:33 AM (rbvCR)

I would wish for more realism but I appreciate the effort
Would

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo at August 12, 2026 12:40 PM (xcxpd)

259 Why won't hyperscalers see diminshing returns in the value of what they're delivering.

Why won't the winners be those that figure out how to use AI as a tool. Why won't they be able to do this with "pretty good AI" without needing to be on the bleeding edge?

What about military applications?

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 12, 2026 01:03 PM (dtajH)

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