Tech Giants Pour $300B into AI Data Centers

Tech giants are spending more than $300 billion this year building AI data centers, with Phase 1 dominated by Nvidia GPUs and Phase 2 expected to emphasize sovereign AI and other structural shifts. The market resembles a 'picks-and-shovels' gold rush—firms are buying GPUs, talent, and infrastructure at great cost, and many core businesses remain unprofitable as they search for viable AI products. That exuberance has produced speculative valuations and a cooling of hype as firms cut budgets and developers push back after AI tools proved error-prone and delivered uneven ROI. New AI-native browsers and agentic tooling promise productivity gains but introduce novel security risks — including hallucinations, prompt injections, and cross-origin/session exploits — that must be guarded against. As public-market froth deflates, builders are refocusing on durable infrastructure and adjacent trends such as Web3, where AI is being applied to simplify difficult user experiences and support more pragmatic, long-term product and platform building.