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While I think there is an AI bubble I also think that when every big AI provider is claiming on earnings calls that they can't sell enough tokens to meet demand that the music will keep going at least a little longer. Combine that with positive unit economics for inference and there is at least a plausible business case that AI labs can make money soon. Anthropic claims as soon as the end of 2026 we'll see about that.

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There is also a chance that a lot of this capex is written off, and the money becomes "sunk". Bad for the current players, but given inference costs as you mention are profitable, after the writeoffs and the market correction the industry continues on variable inference revenue.

The catch is you probably only want to be invested after any writeoffs/corrections if that is your hypothesis. i.e. the future may be AI, but it isn't a straight line, nor is it guaranteed that the current players will be the future AI company of choice. You can be right about the end state and still lose your shirt in between with markets.

I assume much of the insatiable demand for tokens is from free users.

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