That $3-to-$10 spend per dollar of revenue ratio mirrors the dot-com telecom overbuild almost exactly. WorldCom alone spent $11 billion on fiber optic capacity. At bankruptcy they were using 2.7% of it. Global Crossing, 360networks, same story. Hundreds of billions burned.
But here is the part nobody talks about: that "wasted" dark fiber became the physical backbone of AWS and cloud computing a decade later. The infrastructure outlived every company that built it. Pennies on the dollar at liquidation.
If AI data center buildout collapses the same way, the interesting question is who becomes the liquidation buyer. Bitcoin miners already specialize in acquiring stranded energy assets and excess compute at distressed prices. Riot Platforms bought Whinstone for $651 million specifically because cheap power infrastructure was available after a previous bust cycle. A wave of abandoned 200GW AI data center projects would be the largest stranded energy opportunity in history, and the only buyers with a business model that works at those margins are running SHA-256.
That $3-to-$10 spend per dollar of revenue ratio mirrors the dot-com telecom overbuild almost exactly. WorldCom alone spent $11 billion on fiber optic capacity. At bankruptcy they were using 2.7% of it. Global Crossing, 360networks, same story. Hundreds of billions burned.
But here is the part nobody talks about: that "wasted" dark fiber became the physical backbone of AWS and cloud computing a decade later. The infrastructure outlived every company that built it. Pennies on the dollar at liquidation.
If AI data center buildout collapses the same way, the interesting question is who becomes the liquidation buyer. Bitcoin miners already specialize in acquiring stranded energy assets and excess compute at distressed prices. Riot Platforms bought Whinstone for $651 million specifically because cheap power infrastructure was available after a previous bust cycle. A wave of abandoned 200GW AI data center projects would be the largest stranded energy opportunity in history, and the only buyers with a business model that works at those margins are running SHA-256.