AI "faith" vs urban investment "faith"

Recently, the market has been repeatedly debating whether to adhere to the "AI faith." In this article, we will set aside the hardcore technical field and discuss the "AI faith" issue from a macro perspective. To facilitate understanding, we have chosen a reference framework—urban investment, because fundamentally, there are many similarities between "AI faith" and "urban investment faith":

First, the development logic of "to get rich, first build roads." Urban investment is the main body of large-scale urbanization construction. The first step in urban construction is land development and infrastructure building, which is equivalent to AI giants hoarding cards, laying AI servers, and building data centers. This is the infrastructure investment in the field of large artificial intelligence. In the urban investment analysis framework, leading indicators include urban planning area, total project investment amount, etc. In the AI analysis framework, leading indicators include the planned number of AI servers and data centers to be built, and the capital expenditure amount of major companies, etc. At this stage, the first beneficiaries are all those who "sell shovels." In the urban investment logic, this refers to steel, concrete, and building materials, where project investment amounts can calculate performance elasticity. In the AI logic, the core is computing power chips, storage, CPO, etc., which also calculate performance elasticity based on capital expenditure. For this reason, concerns about NVIDIA arise; on one hand, whether AI is in a bubble too large and industry capital expenditure cannot continue to grow; on the other hand, whether Google's TPU will replace NVIDIA's GPU, becoming a more cost-effective "steel and concrete" in AI computing power infrastructure.

Second, the financial logic of "too big to fail." Many studies compare the AI boom to the internet bubble of 2000. Learning from history is certainly very relevant. However, there is a significant difference this time: the binding of AI to the U.S. financial industry is evidently deeper. As of November 25, 2025, the "Tech Seven Sisters" (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, NVIDIA, Tesla, and Meta) account for 33% of the total market capitalization of the S&P 500 index and 48% of the total market capitalization of the Nasdaq Composite Index. In 2000, the top seven companies in the U.S. stock market also included non-internet companies like General Electric, Walmart, ExxonMobil, and Merck. Therefore, when the U.S. stock market adjusts, the Federal Reserve shows signs of reversing its stance on delaying interest rate cuts. "One suffers, all suffer; one prospers, all prosper" is actually more like "urban investment." In the urban investment analysis framework, the vast majority of the total debt scale is urban investment bonds, and the default risk of any single urban investment may lead to systemic issues. For this reason, urban investment debt needs to "exchange time for space," and cannot violently break the rigid payment. Similarly, in the AI logic, it is necessary to continuously raise capital expenditure expectations and achieve better-than-expected performance to support stock prices, rather than relying on crises to create bubbles.

Third, the "faith" logic of "current borrowing is for a better tomorrow." In the urban investment logic, infrastructure requires substantial financing; urban construction aims to attract investment and population inflow, relying on future industries and tax revenues to repay the initial infrastructure debt. In the AI logic, the financing scale for computing power infrastructure is also considerable. Current computing power investments aim to continuously enhance the scale of computing power supply and optimize computing power operation efficiency, laying a solid foundation for the emergence of blockbuster applications, with uncertainties in the future But tomorrow is all about stars and the sea.

Fourth, the national fortune logic of "standing at the forefront of the times." Urban investment is a unique economic entity in our country, and its period of great development coincided with our vigorous promotion of urbanization. Without the outstanding contributions of urban investment, there would be no rapid advancement in urbanization, no quick rise of industrialization driven by urbanization, and no rapid increase in total GDP and per capita GDP, which would undermine our country's G2 status as a major power. Currently, we are in an era of technological revolution and industrial competition, where AI is akin to an arms race, a focal point in the game of major powers, and an important part of national strategy. The success or failure of AI directly relates to a country's future global leadership position; it is a "war that cannot be lost."

Standing at this moment, whether it is an "AI bubble" or "AI faith," the market still needs time to provide an answer. However, from the recent landmark event of Google's launch of Gemini 3 and TPU chips, the industrial transformation and technological progress may still be far from their peak.

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