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AI may be the first major technology cycle where access to capital and power and physical infrastructure matters almost as much as the software itself

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Railroads seem like a good parallel: right of way, coal, and iron all were huge factors for success. That was greater CAPEX but the parallel does break down somewhat since railroads had huge, immediate demand and everything but fuel had much longer service lives.

>railroads had huge, immediate demand

Wikipedia states most capital in the late 1800s railroad bubble in the USA was "involved in projects offering no immediate or early returns" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1873

That’s a specific bubble half a century into railroads transforming the American economy. While there were plenty of bad investments, that’s because so much of the economy depended on railroads to move goods and people.

maybe it's not a technology cycle then.

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