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

Post by archagon » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 8:11 AM UTC

axegon_ wrote: post #97

ItsBob wrote: post #82

It's hard not to be fatalistic about all of this now: In my mind, it's crystal clear that the investments will never be paid back. The revenue streams from all the companies involved don't add up. It must fail at this point. That means losses. Big losses for some. I assume that these off-the-books companies can quite literally be pinched off and the debt becomes the banks' problem, so the primary company, i.e. Meta,…

And every time some points all of this out, they are "denier", "left behind" and all the other everything-ai fanatics can come up with. As for the imminent crash - I'm all for it. There's a whole generation that is incapable of thinking for themselves without an LLM telling them what to do or worse still - do it for them. And for much of the tech world, that is becoming the single point of failure. As for China - I t…

Post by sciencejerk » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 8:16 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #26

al_borland wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Society is already being rewarded from the investments AI companies have made. These investments have created something so valuable that society is paying billions of dollars for the product they are making. Even without access to the raw weights, the option of being able to pay for access to these models has tremendous value to society that can not be ignored.

Post by rmunn » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 8:21 AM UTC

LtWorf wrote: post #122

rmunn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the difference between innovating and copying/distilling someone else's innovation. https://wccftech.com/chinas-kimi-k3-identifies-itself-as-ant...

This is a cope.

Post by lelanthran » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 8:26 AM UTC

rmunn wrote: post #53

richardw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US companies need trillions to barely beat Chinese companies spending billions, despite a multi year head start...

That's the difference between innovating and copying/distilling someone else's innovation. https://wccftech.com/chinas-kimi-k3-identifies-itself-as-ant...

Post by sajithdilshan » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 8:30 AM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #3

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.