As hyperscalers such as Nvidia, Amazon, Google, and Meta accelerate spending on artificial intelligence, the scale of new data-center construction has triggered growing warnings about a potential bubble. At NewsTrackerToday, this debate is increasingly viewed as a test of whether the AI cycle represents speculative excess or a structural infrastructure shift.
Industry executives argue the latter. Andy Power, CEO of Digital Realty, says current capacity expansion is anchored in long-term demand rather than financial exuberance. According to Power, new projects are backed by 10- to 15-year contracts with investment-grade customers, sharply reducing the risk of oversupply that typically defines real-estate bubbles.
From a macro perspective, Ethan Cole, senior macroeconomic analyst at NewsTrackerToday, sees the data-center buildout as fundamentally different from past technology booms. Cole notes that AI workloads are not discretionary experiments but mission-critical inputs for cloud services, enterprise software, and national digital infrastructure. “When demand is contractually locked in and capital is deployed against multi-decade usage assumptions, the usual boom-bust logic breaks down,” he explains.
Forecasts reinforce this view. Global data-center capacity is projected to nearly double by 2030, driven primarily by AI computing. Analysts expect artificial intelligence to account for roughly half of total data-center power consumption by the end of the decade, compared with about one-quarter today. At NewsTrackerToday, this shift is interpreted as a structural reallocation of capital toward compute-intensive infrastructure, not a temporary spike.
Still, concerns remain around financing. Some investors question whether all tenants can sustain the scale of commitments required, particularly as AI monetization remains uneven. Sophie Leclerc, technology sector analyst, argues that the risk lies less with physical infrastructure and more with tenant concentration. “The buildings themselves are scarce assets located near power, networks, and users,” she says. “The real variable is which AI strategies ultimately generate durable cash flow.”
Geography adds another layer of resilience. Leading operators continue to concentrate investments in global connectivity hubs such as Northern Virginia, Chicago, Dallas, Frankfurt, London, Tokyo, and Singapore. Vacancy rates in these markets remain historically low, reinforcing the argument that demand continues to outpace supply. At News Tracker Today, the prevailing assessment is that the data-center sector is entering an infrastructure supercycle rather than inflating a speculative bubble. While volatility in AI business models may trigger selective pullbacks, systemic oversupply appears unlikely under current conditions.
The implication is clear: investors should distinguish between leveraged, speculative projects and operators with long-term contracts, strategic locations, and access to power. As NewsTrackerToday concludes, in the AI era, control over compute infrastructure may prove as defensible – and as valuable – as control over energy networks in the last century.