Inference Spend Isn't Speculative: Why AI Tokens Differ From Dot-Com Hardware Hoarding
AccBalanced · x · 2026-08-26
Neil Movva, a former Nvidia engineer, argues that current AI spending differs fundamentally from the dot-com bubble:
- Historical Context: Past investments in networking equipment were speculative bets on future users that never materialized.
- Token Consumption: People buy tokens for immediate utility, not hoarding, eliminating speculation.
- Training vs. Inference: While the recent chip shortage was driven by speculative training spend, inference spend is inherently non-speculative and monotonically increasing.
Neil runs Sail Research, building infrastructure to make tokens cheaper for agents.
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