With 800 million active weekly users, OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the emblematic product of the AI boom and the primary justification for a $3 trillion global investment in datacenter infrastructure. But analysts are divided on whether this user base justifies the “debt-fueled exuberance” of the market.
The optimists, the “boom” camp, see this user number as proof of concept for a market that Morgan Stanley projects will hit $1 trillion by 2028. This optimism is funding “incredible” spending, with “hyperscalers” like Google and Microsoft dropping $750bn on infrastructure, and propelling Nvidia to a $5tn valuation.
The “bubble” camp, however, views this with caution. They point to a recent MIT study showing that 95% of organizations are getting zero return from their generative AI pilots. This suggests that while individual user numbers are high, the corporate adoption needed to pay for this $3tn infrastructure is dangerously low.
This “exuberance” is funding a $1.5tn “speculative” boom, financed by private credit, which analysts warn could pose a “structural risk to the global economy.” The Uptime Institute has also stated that many of the announced datacenter projects are “speculative” and “will never be built.”
The entire $3tn gamble rests on a simple question: Can the 800 million users of ChatGPT, and the services that follow, be monetized quickly enough to pay off the massive, “quickly depreciating” assets being built to support them? The 95% “zero return” figure suggests the answer is far from certain.