Are the Hyperscalers Turning Themselves into the Telecom Companies of the Late 1990s?

From Asset-Light to Capital-Heavy: What Could Go Wrong?

In this essay I argue that the hyperscalers, by ramping up AI-related capital spending to unprecedented levels, have set themselves on a perilous path, away from high-margin, capital-light models toward a capital-intensive future in which their return-on-capital and margin profiles are highly uncertain.

This AI-driven capex frenzy is eerily similar to th…