Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos says that while there are signs of an “industrial bubble,” artificial intelligence is “real, and it is going to change every industry.” His e-commerce giant has been one of the heaviest investors in the surging AI industry in the last few years.
Exor CEO John Elkann asked Bezos on stage at Italian Tech Week in Turin, Italy, whether there were signs that the current AI industry is in a bubble. “This is a kind of industrial bubble,” the Amazon founder responded. Bezos then laid out some of the key characteristics of bubbles, noting that when they happen, stock prices are “disconnected from the fundamentals” of a business. “The second thing that happens is that people get very excited, like they are today about artificial intelligence,” Bezos said, indicating that the latter is helping now around AI.
Other billionaires echo Bezos’ thoughts on the surging AI industry being a bubble that may pop at any time. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon on Friday expressed some concerns about stock market levels amid the AI hype. “When [investors are] excited, they tend to think about the good things that can go right, and they diminish the things you should be skeptical about that can go wrong … There will be a reset, there will be a check at some point, there will be a drawdown,” Solomon said at Italian Tech Week. “The extent of that will depend on how long this [bull run] goes.”
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Amid the ever-challenging AI race, several top companies in the US are throwing their hat in the ring, splurging billions on developing AI data centers and other artificial intelligence innovations. Although Amazon is one of the largest AI investors, the increased competition is a concern for AMZN shares, per numerous analysts. Furthermore, Bezos’ comments acknowledging the growing value of AI, however, appear to fan the flame a bit. Further, Amazon Web Services has the biggest market share in the AI realm, followed by Microsoft’s Azure and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Cloud Platform.