Goldman Throws Cold Water On AI Hype, Moves Forward Datacenter Peak Forecast

From the unveiling of China's ultra-cheap DeepSeek rival to ChatGPT to Microsoft's global pullback on AI data center projects and Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai's warning about an AI infrastructure investment bubble in the U.S., the warning signals are flashing red: The AI data center boom may be set to deflate.

When the DeepSeek news broke in January, we outlined that the emerging "do more with less" theme—driven by more efficient large language models—could be enough for Goldman's James Schneider, Michael Smith, and others to revise their peak data center capacity forecasts forward from late 2026.