Is an AI bubble crisis looming? How will tech giants repeat the 2008 financial crisis?

Introduction: The Hidden Shadows Beneath the AI ​​Boom

We are living in an exciting era, with the AI ​​revolution permeating every corner of life at an astonishing pace, promising a more efficient and intelligent future. However, recently, a worrying signal has emerged: OpenAI, one of the world's most prominent AI companies, has publicly requested federal loan guarantees from the US government to support its massive infrastructure expansion, which could cost over one trillion US dollars. This is not just an astronomical figure, but a stark warning. If the financial blueprint supporting this AI boom bears a striking resemblance to the 2008 financial crisis that nearly destroyed the global economy more than a decade ago, how should we interpret this?

While the prospects of the AI ​​industry and the potential of the technological revolution are exciting, recent market activity has revealed unsettling signals of financial pressure. The underlying structure of its capital operations bears a striking resemblance to several historical financial crises, particularly the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.

This article will delve into the capital cycles, leverage operations, and risk transfer issues behind these warning signs, penetrating market narratives and stress-testing the financial structure supporting current AI valuations. Ultimately, we will assess the nature of the risks, their possible outcomes, and propose investor strategies. Warning Signs Emerge: Early Warning Signals Centered on Oracle In the current boom led by AI technology, market sentiment is generally optimistic, and the stock prices of tech giants are repeatedly hitting new highs. However, just as experienced miners take canaries down the mine to warn of toxic gases, in a seemingly bright market, abnormal financial indicators of individual companies can often become the "canaries in the mine," revealing potential systemic risks across the entire industry. Oracle, a long-established giant in the tech industry, is making a high-stakes gamble. To challenge Amazon, Microsoft, and Google's dominance in the AI ​​data center field, it is investing hundreds of billions of dollars in expansion at the cost of extremely high debt, including the "Stargate" super data center project in partnership with OpenAI. Its debt-to-equity ratio has reached a staggering 500%, meaning its total debt is five times its net assets. In comparison, Amazon's debt-to-equity ratio is only 50%, and Microsoft's is even lower. In short, Oracle has staked almost its entire fortune and even its future value in a high-stakes gamble in this AI race. This alarm bell is called Credit Default Swap (CDS). The most critical recent signal is the insurance premium set up for the potential fire of Oracle's "debt default": its CDS spread has soared to its highest point in years. We can think of CDS as a kind of financial insurance: imagine your neighbor (Oracle) piling up large amounts of flammable material (mountains of debt) in his basement every day. You are very worried that his house will catch fire, and even affect you. So, you find an insurance company and buy fire insurance for your neighbor's house out of your own pocket. In the financial world, this insurance contract is a CDS (Content on a Sale and Resale Transaction), and the premium you pay is the price of the CDS (interest rate spread). A surge in premiums means the insurance company believes the risk of fire has increased dramatically. This phenomenon conveys a clear message: the market's top and most astute financial institutions generally believe that Oracle's default risk is rising sharply, rooted in the "mountain of debt, like dynamite" on its balance sheet. Oracle's debt alarm is like a small crack in the earth's surface, but it hints at violent tectonic activity deep beneath. What structural risks are hidden in this capital operation model that drives the entire AI industry? Deep Financial Structure: The "Infinite Money Cycle" Game Among AI Giants The financial pressure of a single company is just the tip of the iceberg. When we broaden our perspective from Oracle to the entire AI ecosystem, a deeper, structural risk emerges. The real risk lies in a unique capital operation model among AI industry giants—a financial game that appears to be able to turn lead into gold, but is actually extremely fragile. This is the closed-loop capital game known as the "infinite money loop," which inflates income bubbles out of thin air, constructing a seemingly prosperous but ultimately vulnerable financial system. To understand this model more clearly, we can simplify it into a "three friends starting a business" model: Step 1: Chip giant Nvidia (Mr. A) invests $100 in AI star company OpenAI (Mr. B). Step 2: OpenAI (Mr. B) immediately pays all $100 to Oracle (Mr. C), ostensibly to purchase its expensive cloud computing services. Step 3: After receiving the 100 yuan, Oracle (Mr. C) quickly used it all to purchase powerful super chips from its initial investor, Nvidia (Mr. A). After this cycle, the 100 yuan returned to Nvidia. However, although the funds were merely circulating internally without any actual purchases from external customers, the financial statements of the three companies all "magically" generated 100 yuan in revenue each. This makes their financial reports exceptionally impressive, thus strongly supporting their high stock prices and market valuations. The fatal flaw of this model is that the entire game is not built on solid customer demand, but entirely on the promises made by the participants and ever-expanding credit. Once any link in the cycle breaks—for example, Oracle being unable to repay its loans due to excessive debt—the entire seemingly prosperous system could collapse instantly. This closed-loop capital cycle, which inflates income bubbles through insider trading, is not a financial innovation; its structure bears a striking resemblance to certain pre-financial crisis practices, inevitably reminding us of that storm that nearly destroyed the global economy. Echoes of History: Five Striking Similarities Between Current AI Financial Structures and the 2008 Subprime Crisis Current financial phenomena are not isolated. When we piece together Oracle's debt alarm with the capital cycles among AI giants, a sense of déjà vu arises for market observers who experienced the 2008 financial crisis. The following systematic analysis of five key similarities between current financial operations in the AI ​​field and the core elements that led to the 2008 global financial crisis reveals that history may be repeating itself in a new form. These five striking similarities paint a disturbing picture. However, history never simply repeats itself. Before we hastily equate the AI ​​bubble with the subprime mortgage crisis, we must answer a core question: At the heart of this storm, are the "assets" used as collateral fundamentally different?

2008 Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Key Differences Analysis: Why This Might Not Be a Simple Replay of 2008

While the aforementioned similarities are alarming, simply equating the current AI wave with the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis is one-sided. History may have rhythms, but it doesn't simply repeat itself.