BiggerPockets Money Podcast · Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Professor Aswath Damodaran highlights the unprecedented scale of investment in AI infrastructure, estimating it to be over two to two and a half trillion dollars since November 2022. He compares this build-up to historical events like railroad spending and the dot-com bubble, noting its significantly larger magnitude.
“The building up of the architecture and forget the market cap because that can get contaminated or affected by things. It's the actual amount being invested in the architecture, building of the data centers by my estimate is an excess of two to two and a half trillion dollars. This is the largest build up in business history for any new business.”
“This is bigger than what the railroads spent in the 1800s in terms of, you know, dollar value. It puts the dotcom investment into to shame because that was a tiny amount. This is two plus trillion dollars.”