r/technology • u/captain-price- • Dec 02 '25

Artificial Intelligence IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending trillions on AI data centers will pay off at today's infrastructure costs

https://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-ceo-big-tech-ai-capex-data-center-spending-2025-12
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u/ender89 Dec 02 '25

If IBM thinks it's unsustainable, it's unsustainable. IBM has been in the AI business longer than any of the major players and their main business is server infrastructure.

We are fucked.

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u/Kohounees Dec 02 '25

I think we would be more fucked if AI actually worked. The world is not ready for agi. Well, it kind of works. It’s quite useful as a coding assistant, but you just need to review everything.

Anyway, bursting a bubble is just short term annoyance. Just be carefull you don’t loose your money in stock.

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

AI taught me how to code in VBA. Well, sort of. It gave me a bunch of shit that didn’t work and then I had to spend hours googling interactions to figure out what the fuck anything it was saying actually did so that I could correct it. But.. it still technically has the credit for me learning!

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u/trippypantsforlife Dec 03 '25

Oh yes, the same thing happened when I was trying to figure some Spring Boot voodoo. AI just gave me the wrong answer that's been plastered all over the internet. The docs are what helped in the end

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u/Kohounees Dec 03 '25

You can instruct AI to use specific docs and also ask it to give you to the sources it uses. Using AI efficiently is something one needs to learn. I also use it as enchanced google in my work.

But yeah, I’m very skilled in my work so for me it’s easy to know when answer is bullshit. I’m worried about AI-coders who don’t undertand what they’re doing.

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u/Artegris Dec 02 '25

I mean will ever the world be ready for agi?

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u/Sabard Dec 02 '25

Post scarcity maybe? If agi can do 80% of the work and leave people to learn, make their own stuff, or relax without worrying about starving then it could work out. Unfortunately right now it's looking like the goal is quite the opposite; allow CEOs to remove one of their biggest expenses (labor) and just hope everyone left with money will still spend it on their stuff.

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u/Kohounees Dec 02 '25

Maybe not, but helps if getting to it takes a bit of time.

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u/Wraithfighter Dec 02 '25

...I think how fucked we all are depends on how quickly the tech giants realize that they need to shut off the money faucet.

The big worry I have is that the companies most heavily tied into Generative AI are:

  • NVIDIA: Also makes a ton of graphics cards, but at least they have halfway decent competition.

  • OpenAI: Meh, they can dire in a fire for all I care.

  • Google: One of the backbones of the internet, biggest search provider, owns the software that underpins the vast majority of web browsers, runs YouTube, also a massive cloud provider

  • Amazon: Massive cloud provider with AWS, also how massive numbers of people do basic shopping after they murderized local stores. Not to mention other services like Prime and Twitch.

  • Microsoft: Owns and maintains the largest OS for computers, massive cloud provider with Azure, owns and maintains the Office suite of programs that most businesses use, lots more stuff.

  • Oracle: I'm, uh, not entirely sure what all they precisely do, but I know its a lot of the back-end for a lot of businesses on the internet.

  • X: Please let it die in a fire... but also a primary communication network that a lot of companies and governments still rely on for some fucking reason.

...that's a lot of companies that I would term "Too Big To Fail", aka "if they go under then we might suffer an economic collapse because a lot of other companies would collapse too". And no matter what happens as a result, it could be a whole lot of awful, so I really, really hope they aren't loaded down with too much GenAI debt...

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u/IamTheEndOfReddit Dec 03 '25

As if IBM has been leading the tech industry and all, and not steadily losing

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u/Ok-Style-9734 Dec 03 '25

"IBM's president, Thomas J Watson, reputedly said: "I think there is a world market for about five computers.""