How to build a trillion-dollar industry: Step 1, invest in your customers. Step 2, sell them stuff

Feature In late 2025, a series of multi-billion-dollar deals in the artificial intelligence sector is causing déjà vu among industry veterans. Money, computer chips, and cloud credits are rotating in a closed loop among a handful of companies: Nvidia, OpenAI, Microsoft, Oracle, AMD, CoreWeave, xAI, and a few others. This has fueled a trillion-dollar AI boom or bubble built on intertwined investments and contracts.

The arrangement of these deals is so circular that dollars spent by one player often return as revenue for another. This gives the impression of breakneck growth. Critics are increasingly comparing this AI money-go-round to the late 1990s dot-com bubble. They question whether today’s AI valuations are inflated by self-reinforcing deals rather than organic user demand.

A web of deals

At the heart of this circular economy is Nvidia, the world’s most valuable semiconductor company, which recently reached a $5 trillion market capitalization. Nvidia ...