AI Bubble Fears Grow as Big Tech Allegedly Pays Itself in Cloud Loop
Key takeaways
- Critics say the giants are quietly paying themselves through their own cloud bills, igniting fresh AI bubble fears that increasingly echo the dot-com era.
- Latest corporate filings show Open AI and Anthropic alone anchor over half of the roughly $2 trillion in future cloud commitments held by Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle.
- Critics call the mechanism a round-trip funding loop.
AI Bubble Fears Grow as Big Tech Allegedly Pays Itself in Cloud Loop Lockridge Okoth Mon, May 25, 2026 at 8:15 PM GMT+7 5 min read MSFT ANTH.PVT AMZN GOOG ORCL Big Tech s $2 trillion AI gold rush is hiding a structural flaw. Critics say the giants are quietly paying themselves through their own cloud bills, igniting fresh AI bubble fears that increasingly echo the dot-com era.
Latest corporate filings show Open AI and Anthropic alone anchor over half of the roughly $2 trillion in future cloud commitments held by Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle. This leaves four trillion-dollar companies leaning on two unprofitable startups.
Critics call the mechanism a round-trip funding loop. A tech giant writes a billion-dollar check to an AI startup. The contract then forces that same money straight back, in the form of cloud rent. The cash never leaves the building.