It's little secret that artificial intelligence (AI) models -- and the massive data centers required to power them -- are proliferating at a wild pace.
Beyond the wide-ranging ethical and employment debates taking place, the market itself remains hot yet turbulent. AI boosters gesture towards a future where productivity soars and human potential is further unlocked with these tools. Meanwhile, critics lament a loss of human capability (or even intelligence) while AI claims jobs previously occupied by a real person.
In a late 2025 report, Forbes contributor Garth Friesen outlined the battleground between investment firms and mixed investor sentiment. Citing analysis coming from Barclays and Morgan Stanley, Friesen suggested that the oft-made comparison between the AI boom and the dot-com boom was that the former embodied a profitable "infrastructure revolution" as compared to the "speculative, often profitless" examples of the dot-com bubble.
And with Goldman Sachs at the time forecasting a growth in power demand tied to the necessary AI data centers at 175% to 300% by 2030 versus 2023's benchmark, it's easy to see why investors may be keen to hop about the AI train. Regarding the r...