Loudoun County, Virginia, is seeing a massive wave of money fueling data center campuses. Investors now worry if the artificial intelligence boom is being financed in an unstable way. They fear a repeat of the 2007-08 subprime crisis if promised profits from these power-hungry projects are slow to arrive.
If you want to understand the way capital is flowing around the world right now and the new stress points forming, take a drive outside Washington to Loudoun County, Virginia. Two decades ago, it was a focal point of a housing boom fanned by a global savings glut that turned horribly wrong. More recently, a new wave of overseas money has poured in to fuel a boom in data center campuses with the power needs of small cities.
The parallel for Loudoun County – and the global economy – has investors and economists asking whether the artificial intelligence boom is being financed in the same unstable way that unraveled in the 2007-08 subprime crisis, and what happens if the promised profits are slow to arrive.