AI boom or bubble? Timing is everything | CNN Business

Artificial intelligence is a game-changing technology that’s already transforming how the world lives and works. Yet AI can also fuel a market meltdown, a recession – or both. Timing is everything. Money is pouring into AI so rapidly that it’s outpacing the ability to turn a profit. This unsustainable mismatch must come into balance, one way or another. The recent blow-up of a wildly successful AI-focused hedge fund demonstrates the risks and rewards of the AI boom. Those risks are magnified by how incredibly expensive it is to build the AI revolution, where companies are scrambling to buy cutting-edge chips and build data centers the size of dozens of football fields. “I absolutely believe the technology is transformative. But that doesn’t mean you won’t go through irrational exuberance at some point,” Max Gokhman, head of AI and digital asset solutions at investment firm Franklin Templeton, told CNN. Timing is critical in deciding whether the AI boom endures – or if it ends in tears like past asset bubbles. Will the gobs of money being spent to build out AI bring real returns before Wall Street’s patience runs out? For now, the heavy hitters in finance are still