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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. Legend2440 · · focus · HN ↗
      Keep in mind wealth is not a fixed thing. If AI makes their businesses more productive, it would allow the creation of more wealth, giving them more money to pay for AI with.

      This of course hinges on the big if: does AI create wealth? I think yes, but maybe not $6 trillion of it in five years.

      1. otherme123 · · focus · HN ↗
        I think you are mixin wealth with money. In the short run it is a near zero sum game: money should go from A (now obsolete) to B. For example, brick and mortar shops replaced by online shops. For example horse business going bankrupt while car business is booming. Wealth is created in the form of more convenient shopping or travelling, not as $$$. AI might help some businesses with their productivity (creating new wealth), but those business are expected to divert $6T from current expenses (wages, or non AI tooling) towards AI pockets, or steal $6T market share from non-AI business.
        1. Legend2440 · · focus · HN ↗
          >For example horse business going bankrupt while car business is booming.

          But also the car business is far larger than the horse business ever was. It is not zero-sum; every time Henry Ford's factory spit out a new model T, real wealth was being created.

          Money is just a standin for wealth. If we suddenly doubled the amount of wealth in the world, we could just print more dollars to match - or the existing dollars would just become worth twice as much.

          1. r3trohack3r · · focus · HN ↗
            This. Positive sum games are deflationary. Economic policy can, and has, offset the deflation of techno capital growth.
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