Taking stock: Is AI burning cash?
episodePreviously titled “Taking Stock: Is AI burning cash?” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
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Hello, I'm Will Bain and welcome to Business Daily, where today we're taking stock of a week in which a raccoon with a shortened spine seemed to completely take over the internet.
Yes, Timothy, the Seattle raccoon has spawned artwork, baked goods and even that song. And we here today are going to desperately strive for even a percent, I think, of his popularity with our panel. Now found back with us journalist in Hanoi, Vietnam and Takara Small, tech columnist joining us from Toronto, Canada. Great to have you both back with us. Takara, being someone who's kind of in the capital of raccoons, has he been filling up your feed this week?
It has. And I will say garbage pandas hold a very sweet spot in many people's hearts. So seeing that it's managed to capture attention south of the border, it's like, you know, the cherry on top of the sundae.
Now, has he gone global, Jimothy the raccoon? Have you seen him in Vietnam?
Yes, yes, I saw. And it's a new competition to my favorite pygmy hippo, the mudang from Thailand. So I've got it as a screensaver. Now I have the new raccoon.
viral animals, definitely the heroes we need. Plenty more from NARP and Takara with us throughout the program today as we take stock on the business week. Yeah, been a big week of tech earnings out on the New York stock exchange, hasn't it? Some of the biggest companies on the planet revealing their results. And Takara, very much your beat tech, as well as Trash Banders. Massive, massive spending that these companies were announcing, particularly Google or their parent company, Alphabet, I guess the one really grabbing attention at the back end of this week.
It's been interesting to watch, to be honest. Google Alphabet had a standout quarter and yet you're still seeing investors who are cautious. You're seeing people pull back because, as you mentioned, there are billions of dollars going into the AI space and we're not confident that we're going to see those returns. And just here in Canada, we've announced a lot of money on data centers, on propping up businesses. And this all comes at a time where even the average person is saying, do we want this type of investment in AI? How does this help society? How does this improve our economies?
And the numbers, incredible. So this idea of free cash flow, Takara, so that's the kind of money they've got left over after they've announced their investments, salaries and keeping the lights on and all that kind of stuff. Minus $6 billion potentially here for a company that's making, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars a quarter.
Exactly. And I think that's why you're seeing capital spending plans. You're seeing a lot of concerns around partnerships and trades. And let's be honest, a lot of the dominant investment theme that we're seeing from investors and critics is focused on how these companies are going to stay competitive, especially with some of the innovation we're seeing in Asia. How is this sustainable long term?
Yes, definitely. I hear a lot of concerns, actually, about the markets, the volatility that it may actually bring in. Last year, I met some people from the UK in Taiwan, and I was so surprised that their knowledge and their understanding of the AI market is not as much as people in Taiwan understand. Obviously, you know, people in Asia actually have been familiarised themselves with AI much, much earlier. But now, you know, we kind of think that maybe we should take a stop and look back and see how it goes.
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