More and more mainstream analysts are identifying the coming AI crash, which is a good indication that it will happen soon.
So, what happens to all the data centers? They are already built but probably very expensive to maintain. Will many of them just be abandoned? Bought up by cloud computing companies? Scammers? Crypto miners? Can they be parted out and sold off piecemeal?
Will they be put to some productive use, or just become massive e-waste sites left to the locals to deal with?
An era of cheap used hardware? I would guess probably like whatever happened after the dotcom bubble in the late 90s.
Did the dotcom bubble result in billions of dollars of physical infrastructure in this way? Genuinely asking.
Yes, in ways that were actually greatly beneficial. Some companies were complete vaporware, but it proved a huge boom for fibre optic infrastructure and on the whole, building out modern telecom infrastructure. In a few short years, people went from dialup and T1 connections to DSL and high-speed cable. People weren’t connected, and now they suddenly needed to be. It was an entirely new enterprise.
Unfortunately, these AI datacenters aren’t really the same. They’re not benefitting the public in a lasting sense. These are hot, they’re loud, and they’re expensive. The biggest benefits you may see from them after the bubble bursts is the infrastructure that was required to sustain them.
Improvements to sustainable, and cleaner energy sources are probably the biggest benefits. Reclaiming and rebuilding old nuclear plants, increased solar and wind projects. Governments that are willing to sell their constituents down a river for the business of a tech conglomerate won’t benefit from this, but for the states that are now passing legislation to require these kinds companies to put their money into the communities they want to operate in may build lasting improvements.
It’s a small silver lining, but it’s there. That said, I can only imagine that when these companies see their business begin to get buried under the landslide of debt and reality that they will do everything in their power to escape liability for the waste of resources.
I don’t know specifically, but there were thousands of startups that used computers, so when they went belly up one would assume they liquidated their assets. /edit: checking, yes according to google it did result in billions in liquidated or abandoned computer hardware.