The market worry that “AI spending can’t go on forever” is actually a false proposition: the cost of stopping spending is far greater than the cost of continuing it. This is a game where no one dares to stop first, or even slow down first.
Why does no one dare to stop? Three layers of logic.
First layer: business logic — stopping means handing customers to competitors
All hyperscalers report AI capacity as supply-constrained rather than demand-constrained. Azure can’t build enough, AWS sells out as soon as it goes live, and Google Cloud has a backlog of $240 billion in orders.
In this environment, cutting investment = actively giving up market share.
Second layer: survival logic — AI is reshaping every business line
This is not just about “building data centers and selling cloud.” AI is penetrating the core revenue engines of search (Google), advertising (Meta), e-commerce (Amazon), and office productivity (Microsoft).
Stopping AI investment means your core businesses will be disrupted in the next three to five years.
Third layer: national logic — geopolitical competition
AI is not only about productivity and profits, but also about military advantage, intelligence dominance, and long-term geopolitical leverage. No major power can afford the consequences of losing this race.
That is why the U.S. government tacitly allows, and even encourages, this seemingly irrational spending.