📉 The Silicon Leviathan: AI's Economic Impact and Future Risks - AI infrastructure spending rivals 19th-century railroads

This episode examines the unprecedented global capital expenditure in Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure. It quantifies this investment, currently estimated at approximately £410 billion annually, highlighting that this "Silicon Stimulus" is significantly propping up US GDP growth, masking underlying economic weaknesses.

The report draws parallels with historical infrastructure booms like the 19th-century railroad expansion and the dot-com era's telecom buildout, noting that the AI boom's scale already surpasses the latter. A critical distinction is the short lifespan of AI hardware, particularly GPUs, which have an effective useful life of only one to three years, creating a "Capital Maintenance Trap" that necessitates continuous, massive investme ...