Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has likened today’s artificial intelligence boom to an “industrial bubble”, warning of inevitable lost investments but predicting long-term benefits for society, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
Speaking at Italian Tech Week in Turin on Friday, Bezos said investor euphoria means “every experiment gets funded, every company gets funded — the good ideas and the bad ideas”.
The challenge, he noted, is that “investors have a hard time distinguishing between the two”.
Despite the froth, he argued AI will transform every industry and boost productivity globally.
He compared the current frenzy to the 1990s biotech bubble and the dot-com surge a quarter century ago, both of which destroyed capital but left behind breakthroughs such as lifesaving drugs and today’s digital economy.
AI builders and their ecosystem — from data centres and chips to applications — are drawing vast sums, with valuations soaring.
Bloomberg reported BlackRock is in talks to buy Aligned Data Centers for around $40 billion, while OpenAI recently became the world’s most valuable private firm at $500 billion through a secondary sale.
Yet concerns are rising: GIC’s chief investment officer warned this week of a “hype bubble” in early-stage AI venture funding.
Bezos urged patience: “When the dust settles and you see who the winners are, society benefits. This is real. The benefits from AI are going to be gigantic.”
Data centres in space
Bezos predicted on Friday gigawatt-scale data centres will be built in space within the next 10 to 20 years and that continuously available solar energy meant they would eventually outperform those based on Earth.
The concept of orbital data centres has gained traction among tech giants as those on Earth have driven up demand for electricity and water to cool their servers.