The $449 billion question

Tracking the AI spending bubble in real time

I’m wrapping up the 3Q25 update of MTN Consulting’s webscale market tracker. The headline: market capex hit $449 billion for the 12 months ended September 2025, up 71% year-over-year. That tracks closely with NVIDIA’s 65% revenue growth over the same period.

The spending surge itself isn’t surprising. What’s changed is that serious questions about sustainability are finally entering mainstream discussions.

The chart above shows how our perspective at MTNC has evolved over time, mapped against actual capex spending. Back in 4Q23, we noted a “good outlook for 2024-25 driven by GenAI land grab.” By 1Q24, we mentioned that the “Generative AI bubble expands and FOMO prevails.” The warnings got sharper from there.

These weren’t predictions of imminent collapse. They were observations that the math was getting increasingly challenging. Could we be wrong? Yes. Perhaps 70% annual capex growth is sustainable, and AI will cure all the world’s ills in the next 3 years.

But that seems unlikely.

The analyst industry (and I say this as someone in it) has structural incentives to amplify cycles rather than moderate them. New technology waves drive conference attendance, research subscriptions, and consulting engagements. Skepticism doesn’t sell as well as FOMO.

Which is why accountability matters. When firms make projections, those projections should be revisited and examined, not quietly forgotten when narratives shift. The chart above is our attempt at that transparency. We’ve been publicly skeptical for over 6 quarters while capex continued its vertical climb. Many big analyst & consulting firms have been cheering the excess.

By 2Q25, we were writing that “NVIDIA is cleaning up while everyone else fights for scraps.” Warning of the bubble had gotten tiresome, like shouting into the wind. But it was worth noting that NVIDIA was not the only beneficiary of the buildout.

Now, with our 3Q25 report about to publish, the headline is “big tech CEOs hedge bets but continue kissing the ring.” The spending continues, as does the Trump pandering, but the confidence seems to be wavering.

I hope we’re witnessing the early stages of a soft landing rather than something more disruptive. Either way, healthy markets require both optimism and skepticism. The tech industry has plenty of the former. There’s room for more of the latter.

*

Interested in webscale and AI compute markets? Contact MTN Consulting for more information about our coverage: matt@mtn-c.com.