The AI Bubble Tracker is a live dashboard for assessing whether the boom in artificial intelligence is supported by real demand and sustainable finances, or is showing signs of a speculative bubble. It organizes indicators into seven areas: spending, supply, usage, adoption, prices, markets and credit, and public attention. Rather than relying on a single measure, it sets current AI investment alongside precedents such as the dot-com boom and tracks both the physical buildout and the businesses expected to pay for it.
Its indicators range from hyperscaler data-centre and chip spending, lab revenues, borrowing and depreciation assumptions to chip prices, data-centre vacancies, power demand and construction. Measures of actual activity include model usage, AI-assisted coding, paid business adoption, job listings and consumer use; pricing data tracks the cost of models and rented GPUs. Financial gauges cover stock valuations, debt, interest payments, leveraged funds and insider sales, while attention measures follow company filings, online discussion, research and consumer curiosity. The dashboard highlights potential warning signals - such as spending outrunning cash flow, rising inventories, or announcements exceeding construction - alongside evidence of demand, including usage and contracted cloud backlogs. It is designed to let readers compare these signals over time, not to reduce the bubble question to one headline statistic.
Summary generated by AI from the linked article. hn.today is not affiliated with Hacker News or Y Combinator.
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An investigation traced 1,500 fake job ads to a global multi-level marketing scheme. The ads were used to recruit people into the scheme under the guise of employment. (youtube.com)
U.S. credit card debt rose $22 billion in the third quarter to a record $1.29 trillion, up 4.2% from a year earlier, according to the New York Fed. Total household debt also hit a record $19.1 trillion, while TransUnion reported an average credit card balance of $6,678 per consumer. (cnbc.com)
Layoffs & Hires is a live dashboard tracking company job cuts and openings worldwide, with filters by region and sector. This week it lists 6,942 layoffs and 76,044 new jobs, with Boeing among the largest reported cuts and Walmart leading hiring. (layoffsandhires.com)
Better Markets says the SEC brought 25% fewer enforcement cases in fiscal 2026 than in 2025, while monetary sanctions fell from nearly $18 billion to $1 billion. The group accuses Chair Paul Atkins’s SEC of failing to hold wrongdoers accountable and prioritizing corporations over investors. (bettermarkets.org)
The Sherman Antitrust Act, signed by President Benjamin Harrison on July 2, 1890, was the first federal law to prohibit monopolistic business practices. It empowered the government to pursue trusts that restrained interstate or foreign commerce and break them up. (archives.gov)
Nvidia’s independent board members hired former acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim and law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct an independent investigation. The investigation was announced Sunday. (nvidianews.nvidia.com)
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