Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson · Friday, August 14, 2026
A listener questioned if NVIDIA's approach to financing AI infrastructure, which involves shifting GPU depreciation risk, mirrors the financial engineering that led to the 2008 subprime crisis. The discussion explored whether this could create preconditions for a cascading collapse or if it's the only way to expand capital for AI build-out.
“Can CUDA really generate earnings growth at a rate that outpaces depreciation of the GPUs? And being very unscientific about this, but it feels to me like there's an order of magnitude difference in there, and not in CUDA's favor.”
“The conclusion of your article on Tuesday carries echoes for me of the resecuritization of mortgage instruments into CDOs and credit default swaps that created the conditions for the subprime loan crisis and the global financial crisis.”
“In seeking to expand the breadth of available capital, is Wong creating the preconditions for a subsequent cascading collapse? Perhaps more interestingly, is there a feasible alternative or is this just the way the bubble expands?”