Derek Thompson

It's happening right now.

And you've been sounding the alarm maybe more than just about anybody.

or more effectively than just about anybody, on just how massive U.S.

investment in artificial intelligence is by historical standards.

So why don't you just start with your thesis statement?

How big is this?

So we're talking about infrastructure boom that is on par with the broadband build out of the 1990s, early 2000s.

Still behind, it seems like the railroad boom of the 19th century, but we're talking essentially about an amount of spending on one emerging technology that is without precedent in at least

60 to 100 years.

How does AI CapEx break down, right?

We're talking about capital expenditures.

So money that's being spent on essentially machines rather than people.

How much of this is chips versus energy versus building the actual data centers themselves?

Is there a good way to think about where all this money is going?

You've compared the infrastructure boom several times to the railroads, the fiber build-out.

You also indicated that there's ways in which that analogy does not hold up.

So I want to get into that, right?

What the analogy misses.

Like the rail that we laid in, say, the 1860s

was still around in the 1890s.