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Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

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Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I owe the bank $750,000 and can't pay, it's my problem. If I owe the bank $1,750,000,000 and can't pay, it's the bank's problem.

If the bank is owed $1,650,000,000,000 and isn't paid, then it becomes the tax payers problem apparently

2008 all over again, but instead of Washington Mutual and Countrywide, we have whatever the heck is going on now.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#12

Well technically they don’t own the debt, the SPVs that own the data centers do. The giants just have long term commitments, but if shit hits the fan, it’s not the tech giants but the banks that lent the money to the SPVs that are at risk. This usually means all of us are on the hook.

how are these long term commitments structured? Can the big companies default on them? pay a small penalty? I think that probably makes a large difference.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#14

Well technically they don’t own the debt, the SPVs that own the data centers do. The giants just have long term commitments, but if shit hits the fan, it’s not the tech giants but the banks that lent the money to the SPVs that are at risk. This usually means all of us are on the hook.

>SPVs that own the data centers

I mean if AI falls short we might see a collapse in the price of colo but those investments would probably just be paid back over 10x the period.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bank is owed $1,650,000,000,000 and isn't paid, then it becomes the tax payers problem apparently

2008 all over again, but instead of Washington Mutual and Countrywide, we have whatever the heck is going on now.

I don’t know if the public would be as accepting of a bailout for AI companies… trillion dollar businesses that pushed technology with the goal of eliminating 50% of white collar workers… that isn’t really mission critical.

If they want the reward, they need to accept the risk when the bet doesn’t go their way. If they aren’t willing to accept that, they shouldn’t be making such big bets.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#16
post #6

On the one hand, these debts may be off the balance sheet, but institutional investors certainly know about them and can reason about the company's valuation. Retail investors may be caught out slightly more. But on the other hand, these companies are essentially paying for the service of taking the debt off books (by paying the leasing premium to the SPV partners). I guess I'm wondering what they really gain from do…

I think it's just a common practice to do it this way in the industry. May not mean these companies are intentionally hiding something at this point of time.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#17

These debts mean nothing if the US government actually views AI technology as being on par with the Manhattan project. They'll just bail them out or nationalise them.

They can only do that if AI is profitable or at break even. Otherwise they would need to finance these companies yearly.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#18

These debts mean nothing if the US government actually views AI technology as being on par with the Manhattan project. They'll just bail them out or nationalise them.

In other words, the US gov will simply put all the debt onto the public, as usual.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#19

These debts mean nothing if the US government actually views AI technology as being on par with the Manhattan project. They'll just bail them out or nationalise them.

The advantages of being a reserve currency and then also blaming your peer competitors as “manipulators”.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2008 all over again, but instead of Washington Mutual and Countrywide, we have whatever the heck is going on now.

I don’t know if the public would be as accepting of a bailout for AI companies… trillion dollar businesses that pushed technology with the goal of eliminating 50% of white collar workers… that isn’t really mission critical. If they want the reward, they need to accept the risk when the bet doesn’t go their way. If they aren’t willing to accept that, they shouldn’t be making such big bets.

> I don’t know if the public would be as accepting of a bailout for AI companies

That's putting it mildly, IMO.

An AI bailout would be a poison pill that would electorally doom whichever party was behind it for decades.

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