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AI needs $6T in annual revenue to justify data centre boom

222 points · 335 comments · Betelbuddy

  1. bunderbunder · · focus · HN ↗
    They talk a bit about where the AI companies are supposed to get their revenue from. I’d like to see these analyses go a step further and talk about how those AI customers are supposed to come up with that money as well.

    For example, the article suggests $1T from enterprise productivity tooling. A quick Google suggests the global enterprise productivity tooling market is only worth about $0.1T right now.

    Do we really expect all the world’s corporations to suddenly up their annual spend by 1,000% on average? Why?

    1. tw04 · · focus · HN ↗
      Because they’ll be able to just fire all their employees and redirect the spend to AI. That’s the current delusion.
      1. rf15 · · focus · HN ↗
        Even if they were right... they don't really understand mass unemployment of that scale, right? Hungry people with a lot of time on their hands are known to get particularly inventive to entertain those who own too much.
        1. hirako2000 · · focus · HN ↗
          And it's proven constraints nurture creativity and risk taking. It adds up.
      2. SlightlyLeftPad · · focus · HN ↗
        Seriously. We’re supposed to believe this AI boomer rhetoric that it won’t take jobs. In order for companies to pay for it, it must take out jobs.
        1. someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
          It must seem like it's taking jobs.
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