History has seen this pattern before. From railway tracks in Victorian Britain to dot-com bubbles at the turn of the millennium, transformative technologies invite euphoric investment. Capital rushes in, dreams soar higher than fundamentals, and the eventual correction leaves a trail of bankruptcies and cheap infrastructure for the next generation to exploit.

Artificial intelligence is now following that familiar script. By 2028, global spending on AI-ready data centres alone is projected to exceed three trillion dollars. America’s largest technology firms are already pouring hundreds of billions each year into server farms, chips and power-hungry networks. Start-ups with unproven revenue models raise capital in billion-dollar tranches, cheered on by investors convinced that machine intelligence will redefine everything from health care to warfare. Some of these bets will pay off spectacularly, but many will not.

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