Few things are as sensitive as a blister. Touching its surface or inflating it too much could be enough for it to burst.
In the financial market it is no different. Investors have embraced the analogy to refer to a scenario in which an asset or asset class rises quickly and strongly with speculation surrounding it.
When it skyrockets, the company’s market value ends up exceeding the real value attributed to it, the so-called valuation, calculated using metrics found in companies’ balance sheets, such as earnings and sales.
The lack of fundamentals makes the overvalued asset sensitive to any disturbance. The bubble eventually bursts and the price collapses. In this scenario, it is not just the companies involved that lose, but each investor who bet on this ecosystem.
The last big bust faced by the world market was the housing bubble in the United States, which culminated in the 2008 financial crisis.
In recent times, fears are growing that a new scenario of this type is forming on the horizon around one of today’s main trends: artificial intelligence.
Irish economist David McWilliams stated, in a recent interview with the North American magazine Fortune, that AI “will undoubtedly break” since it is “a digital ‘lettuce'” prone to withering soon.
“You are investing in something that is perishable. Technological changes suggest that if you buy a GPU today, the chip will be obsolete next year. (AI companies are) investing huge amounts of money in lettuce, which will spoil now”
The investments made in the sector have been the main focus of the questions. The notes began around the billion-dollar amounts contributed by US technology companies after China developed its own low-cost AI: DeepSeek.
Now, the question that arises is that the boom of artificial intelligence is creating a , with a supplier investing in the customer itself, thus in theory manufacturing its own demand.
“There is a great risk, especially when you observe that they are [investimentos] crossed, because any difficulty that any company may experience puts the entire system at risk”, explains Alcides Peron, professor at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Unicamp (University of Campinas) and scholar on the subject.
A recent example of these moves involves the two companies at the center of the AI market: Nvidia and OpenAI.
At the end of September, it will also provide it with its microprocessors to equip data processing centers.
One of the Magnificent Seven, Jensen Huang’s chip giant is at the center of other agreements made with Intel and CoreWeave, the latter which also signed a contract with Sam Altman’s startup in March.
Other of the main ties tied in 2025 of this AI “web” are seen in the following infographic:
“This point is fundamental to understanding why the market has become volatile and risky. […] A risk of all this circularity is that OpenAI is very relevant in this chain. If something happens to it, it will raise doubts about everything else”, observes William Castro Alves, chief strategist and partner at Avenue, Itaú’s international investment brokerage.
With more than 35 years in Silicon Valley, Avanish Sahai sees Nvidia as “the main pillar of this AI industry.” He considers that “if this group of companies are unable to bring a real result, then the model could break”.
Both disagree, however, that there is a bubble and that it is about to burst.
The bet on AI
Avanish Sahai, who is an investor and advisor to technology companies, recognizes that expectations are high since “AI is revolutionary”.
In this sense, Alves does not see a disconnect between the prices assigned by the market and what companies in the sector are really worth.
“The bubble is linked to a decoupling of asset prices from their fundamentals, […] and when looking at whether the market value fluctuates in disconnection, it is not completely disconnected”, points out the Avenue strategist, highlighting that Nvidia has recorded its recent peaks accompanied by its positive balance sheets.
The latest came after strengthening the position in OpenAI, which led investors to .
Days later, with record revenue, the shares rose again.
According to SoftBank’s CFO, the sale of shares was linked not to a loss of confidence in Nvidia’s upside potential, but rather to the need for cash for investments in the so-called Stargate Project.
The audacious AI infrastructure venture is a bet that has among its main sponsors the Japanese investment bank, OpenAI, Oracle and AI investor MGX. In addition to the two technology companies, Arm, Microsoft and Nvidia itself will also contribute to the project’s foundations.
Over the next four years, . The Donald Trump administration has said it will help facilitate the project with emergency orders.
Regarding the fears, Marcio Aguiar, director of Nvidia’s Enterprise division for Latin America, says that the company follows market movements but that they do not interfere with the company’s “futuristic” and “pioneering” vision.
“Everything we do, we are always thinking ahead of the market. These investments we have been making with companies […] This is to boost the development of new technologies and consequently serve as services for other large corporations. In the perception of many, it can be a circular investment, very dependent, as they say, ‘on a single company that is driving this entire movement’, but in fact this has always been Nvidia since its foundation, coming out ahead of the market”, argues Aguiar.
Still, Avanish Sahai recognizes there are risks. “I think we are at a stage where there is a lot of investment. There are some [empresas] that are over-rated? It’s definitely part of the game. Over time, some things will survive, others may not do so well, but it’s part of the economy.”
Risks
William Castro Alves highlights that some market values may be overestimated, and considers that there may be “some correction” in the next 12 months when investors “rationalize and question certain things”.
But beyond the marketing aspect, Sahai highlights the regulatory risks and the concentration of technology in the hands of a few.
“The fact that there is no global consensus on how to regulate and create guidelines between countries, companies and use AI as a technology and tool for good, this worries me. Creating poles, enmity and competition between regions is a risk”, ponders the Silicon Valley veteran.
Alcides Peron highlights the potential for technology to accentuate inequalities between countries, pointing to the concentration of productive capacity among those who develop the systems and the environmental impacts that must be generated in those who apply to receive structures such as data centers.
“This dispute for the consolidation of AI production chains has introduced a new international division of labor, […] bringing a risk to those who have not entered this chain in a sovereign manner.”
In collaboration with Gisele Farias
