BlockBeats News, July 16th, Bank of America's latest investor survey shows that the market's attitude toward AI capital spending is becoming more nuanced. Most investors do not think the AI spending boom has peaked yet and still expect this round of spending frenzy to continue in the second half of this year; however, concerns about hyperscaler spending accelerating too quickly, debt pressure, and credit risks are on the rise.

The survey indicates that investors are not universally betting on the end of the AI cycle. On the contrary, the market still believes that major platforms such as Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and others will continue to expand their data centers, GPU, and power infrastructure investments. However, the issue is that the capital expenditure growth rate has become so rapid that some investors are starting to worry about free cash flow, repurchase capacity, and balance sheet flexibility.

BofA's survey approach shows that AI has evolved from a simple growth story to a capital discipline issue. Over the past two years, the market has rewarded companies for heavily investing in AI; now, investors are beginning to question the payback period of these investments, depreciation pressures, and whether cloud providers will be forced into overbuilding due to competition.