---
title: AI bubble monitor — pressure score, pillars and indicators
canonical: https://sweetvaluelab.com/tools/ai-bubble
as_of: 2026-10-16
---
# AI bubble monitor — Oct 16, 2026

The pressure score reads 85 of 100, in the "extreme" band — the equal-weighted mean of five pillar scores, each the mean of its indicators' percentile ranks against their own quarter-end history. 11 of 13 indicators sit at or above the 80th percentile. Statements through 2026 Q2 (hyperscalers) and 2026 Q2 (chip suppliers).

## Spending — pillar score 99

Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle buy most of the world's AI chips and build the halls they sit in. Capital expenditure is that bill. When it grows faster than the cash their businesses throw off, the build-out stops being paid for out of pocket, which is where most AI bubble arguments start.

| Indicator | Value | Percentile | As of | Definition |
| --- | ---: | ---: | --- | --- |
| Capex ÷ operating cash flow | 81.8% | 99 | 2026 Q2 | The five hyperscalers' trailing-twelve-month capital expenditure divided by their operating cash flow. 100% would mean every dollar of cash the businesses generate goes back into buildings and servers. |
| Capex ÷ revenue | 30.6% | 99 | 2026 Q2 | Trailing-twelve-month capex as a share of trailing-twelve-month revenue, the five hyperscalers summed. |
| Capex growth | 81.2% | 99 | 2026 Q2 | Trailing-twelve-month capex against the same window a year earlier. |

## Funding — pillar score 95

Free cash flow is what is left after capex. As it shrinks, the gap gets filled by borrowing: bond issues, leases, and joint-venture vehicles that a balance sheet only partly shows. More debt does not mean a bust. It means less room for a disappointment.

| Indicator | Value | Percentile | As of | Definition |
| --- | ---: | ---: | --- | --- |
| Free cash flow margin | 6.8% | 99 | 2026 Q2 | (Operating cash flow − capex) ÷ revenue, trailing twelve months, the five hyperscalers summed. Ranked upside down: a thinner margin is more pressure. |
| Debt growth | 66.1% | 99 | 2026 Q2 | The five hyperscalers' total debt (FMP's figure, which includes the lease liabilities it classes as debt) against a year earlier. |
| Net borrowing ÷ cash flow | 29.9% | 88 | 2026 Q2 | Debt issued minus debt repaid over twelve months, divided by operating cash flow over the same months. |

## Payback — pillar score 99

A data centre pays off only if it earns more than it costs to run and to replace. Servers are depreciated over five to six years, so today's capex is tomorrow's depreciation charge. When capex runs several times ahead of depreciation and grows faster than revenue, an expense wave is building that future revenue has to cover.

| Indicator | Value | Percentile | As of | Definition |
| --- | ---: | ---: | --- | --- |
| Capex ÷ depreciation | 3.22× | 99 | 2026 Q2 | Trailing-twelve-month capex divided by depreciation and amortisation. Well above 1× means the depreciation charge has yet to catch up with what was bought. |
| Capex growth − revenue growth | 62.6% | 99 | 2026 Q2 | Year-on-year growth of trailing-twelve-month capex minus year-on-year growth of trailing-twelve-month revenue. Positive means spending is outrunning sales. |

## Suppliers — pillar score 87

Nvidia, Broadcom and AMD are paid by the spenders, and increasingly invest in their own customers, who then buy their chips. That loop is what critics call circular financing. One trace of it is working capital: when receivables or inventory grow faster than sales, customers are taking longer to pay or product is piling up.

| Indicator | Value | Percentile | As of | Definition |
| --- | ---: | ---: | --- | --- |
| Supplier receivable days | 56 days | 84 | 2026 Q2 | Nvidia, Broadcom and AMD's receivables divided by the quarter's revenue, times 91.25: how many days of sales customers still owe them. |
| Supplier inventory days | 105 days | 90 | 2026 Q2 | The three suppliers' inventory divided by the quarter's cost of revenue, times 91.25: how many days of production sit unsold. |

## Market — pillar score 47

The other half of any bubble is price. We track what the eight companies are worth against their sales, how far they have outrun the S&P 500 over a year, and how far semiconductor stocks sit above their 200-day average.

| Indicator | Value | Percentile | As of | Definition |
| --- | ---: | ---: | --- | --- |
| AI basket price ÷ sales | 9.09× | 94 | 2026-10-16 | The eight companies' combined market value (close × diluted shares) over their combined trailing-twelve-month revenue. |
| AI basket vs S&P 500, one year | 1.5% | 16 | 2026-10-16 | The equal-weighted price return of the eight companies over 252 trading days minus SPY's over the same days. |
| Chip stocks vs 200-day average | 5.6% | 32 | 2026-10-16 | SMH (a semiconductor ETF) against its 200-day moving average: close ÷ MA200 − 1. |

## Companies, latest quarter (trailing twelve months)

| Company | Role | Quarter | Revenue | Capex | Capex ÷ OCF | Free cash flow | Net borrowing | Total debt |
| --- | --- | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| MSFT | spender | 2026 Q2 | $331.8B | $115.9B | 63% | $67B | -$3B | $128.8B |
| GOOGL | spender | 2026 Q2 | $445.9B | $132.4B | 71% | $53.3B | $70.1B | $112.8B |
| AMZN | spender | 2026 Q2 | $775.7B | $173B | 107% | -$11.6B | $75.7B | $223.2B |
| META | spender | 2026 Q2 | $228.2B | $89.3B | 69% | $41B | $23.7B | $112.3B |
| ORCL | spender | 2026 Q3 | $71.8B | $75.7B | 161% | -$28.7B | $37.2B | $155.9B |
| NVDA | supplier | 2026 Q2 | $303B | $7.4B | 5% | $127B | $24.8B | $38.9B |
| AVGO | supplier | 2026 Q2 | $89.1B | $1.3B | 3% | $39.4B | -$5.2B | $59.4B |
| AMD | supplier | 2026 Q2 | $41.3B | $1.7B | 17% | $8.4B | -$1.5B | $4.3B |
| CRWV | neocloud | 2026 Q2 | $7.6B | $20.6B | 298% | -$13.7B | $16.8B | $51.6B |
| NBIS | neocloud | 2026 Q2 | $1.4B | $11.1B | 212% | -$5.9B | $7.5B | $10.1B |

## Following the money: the deals (ledger updated 2026-10-07)

23 disclosed deals between 14 companies and funds; 16 sit on at least one loop of up to three parties, disclosing $532.7B between them (each deal once). Arrows point the way the money goes.

- OpenAI → Microsoft → OpenAI: $250B disclosed, 1 undisclosed
- Amazon → Anthropic → Amazon: $109B disclosed
- Nvidia → OpenAI → Nvidia: $100B disclosed, 1 undisclosed
- Microsoft → Anthropic → Microsoft: $35B disclosed
- Nvidia → Anthropic → Nvidia: $10B disclosed, 1 undisclosed
- Nvidia → CoreWeave → Nvidia: $6.3B disclosed, 1 undisclosed
- OpenAI → AMD → OpenAI: no amount disclosed, 2 undisclosed
- Nvidia → OpenAI → CoreWeave → Nvidia: $122.4B disclosed, 1 undisclosed

| Date | From | To | Kind | Amount | What was agreed | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- | --- |
| 2026-07-28 | BlackRock funds | Meta | Joint-venture financing | — | A joint venture, 80% BlackRock funds and 20% Meta, for the ~$14 billion El Paso campus. | [Meta press release](https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2026/Meta-Announces-New-Strategic-Venture-with-BlackRock-to-Develop-Data-Center-in-El-Paso/default.aspx) |
| 2026-04-20 | Amazon | Anthropic | Equity investment | $5B | $5 billion now, with up to $20 billion more over time. | [Amazon announcement](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-invests-additional-5-billion-anthropic-ai) |
| 2026-04-20 | Anthropic | Amazon | Compute contract | $100B | Anthropic expects to spend more than $100 billion on AWS over ten years, securing up to 5 gigawatts of Trainium capacity. | [Amazon announcement](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-invests-additional-5-billion-anthropic-ai) |
| 2025-11-18 | Anthropic | Microsoft | Compute contract | $30B | Anthropic committed to buy $30 billion of Azure compute and to contract up to one gigawatt more. | [Microsoft blog](https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11/18/microsoft-nvidia-and-anthropic-announce-strategic-partnerships/) |
| 2025-11-18 | Nvidia | Anthropic | Equity investment | up to $10B | Nvidia will invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic. | [Microsoft blog](https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11/18/microsoft-nvidia-and-anthropic-announce-strategic-partnerships/) |
| 2025-11-18 | Microsoft | Anthropic | Equity investment | up to $5B | Microsoft will invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic. | [Microsoft blog](https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11/18/microsoft-nvidia-and-anthropic-announce-strategic-partnerships/) |
| 2025-11-18 | Anthropic | Nvidia | Chip order | — | Anthropic's compute commitment starts with up to one gigawatt of Nvidia Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems. | [Microsoft blog](https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11/18/microsoft-nvidia-and-anthropic-announce-strategic-partnerships/) |
| 2025-11-03 | OpenAI | Amazon | Compute contract | $38B | A $38 billion, seven-year agreement for AWS compute on Nvidia GPUs. | [OpenAI announcement](https://openai.com/index/aws-and-openai-partnership/) |
| 2025-10-28 | Microsoft | OpenAI | Equity investment | — | After OpenAI's recapitalisation Microsoft holds about 27% of OpenAI Group PBC, a stake Microsoft values at about $135 billion. | [Microsoft blog](https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/10/28/the-next-chapter-of-the-microsoft-openai-partnership/) |
| 2025-10-28 | OpenAI | Microsoft | Compute contract | $250B | OpenAI contracted to buy an incremental $250 billion of Azure services. | [Microsoft blog](https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/10/28/the-next-chapter-of-the-microsoft-openai-partnership/) |
| 2025-10-23 | Anthropic | Alphabet | Compute contract | — | Up to one million Google Cloud TPUs, well over a gigawatt in 2026; Anthropic put it at tens of billions of dollars. | [Anthropic announcement](https://www.anthropic.com/news/expanding-our-use-of-google-cloud-tpus-and-services) |
| 2025-10-21 | Blue Owl funds | Meta | Joint-venture financing | — | A joint venture, 80% Blue Owl funds and 20% Meta, funds the ~$27 billion Hyperion campus pro rata; Meta builds and runs it. | [Meta press release](https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2025/Meta-Announces-Joint-Venture-with-Funds-Managed-by-Blue-Owl-Capital-to-Develop-Hyperion-Data-Center/default.aspx) |
| 2025-10-13 | OpenAI | Broadcom | Chip order | — | 10 gigawatts of OpenAI-designed accelerators built with Broadcom, deployed from the second half of 2026 to the end of 2029. | [OpenAI announcement](https://openai.com/index/openai-and-broadcom-announce-strategic-collaboration/) |
| 2025-10-06 | AMD | OpenAI | Share warrant | — | A warrant for up to 160 million AMD shares, vesting as OpenAI's deployments scale and as AMD's share price reaches set targets. | [AMD 8-K exhibit 99.1](https://ir.amd.com/financial-information/sec-filings/content/0001193125-25-230895/d28189dex991.htm) |
| 2025-10-06 | OpenAI | AMD | Chip order | — | 6 gigawatts of AMD Instinct GPUs from the second half of 2026; AMD expects tens of billions of dollars of revenue from it. | [AMD press release](https://ir.amd.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1260/amd-and-openai-announce-strategic-partnership-to-deploy-6-gigawatts-of-amd-gpus) |
| 2025-09-25 | OpenAI | CoreWeave | Compute contract | up to $22.4B | Three contracts (March, May and September 2025) for GPU capacity, together worth up to about $22.4 billion. | [CoreWeave press release](https://www.coreweave.com/news/coreweave-expands-agreement-with-openai-by-up-to-6-5b) |
| 2025-09-22 | Nvidia | OpenAI | Equity investment | up to $100B | Letter of intent: Nvidia invests in OpenAI progressively as each gigawatt of Nvidia systems is deployed. | [Nvidia press release](https://investor.nvidia.com/news/press-release-details/2025/OpenAI-and-NVIDIA-Announce-Strategic-Partnership-to-Deploy-10-Gigawatts-of-NVIDIA-Systems/) |
| 2025-09-22 | OpenAI | Nvidia | Chip order | — | At least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems for OpenAI, the first gigawatt in the second half of 2026. | [Nvidia press release](https://investor.nvidia.com/news/press-release-details/2025/OpenAI-and-NVIDIA-Announce-Strategic-Partnership-to-Deploy-10-Gigawatts-of-NVIDIA-Systems/) |
| 2025-09-09 | Nvidia | CoreWeave | Capacity guarantee | $6.3B | An order with an initial value of $6.3 billion: Nvidia buys any CoreWeave capacity its customers leave unsold, through April 13, 2032. | [CoreWeave 8-K](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000176962825000047/crwv-20250909.htm) |
| 2025-09-08 | Microsoft | Nebius | Compute contract | $17.4B | Dedicated GPU capacity through 2031 for about $17.4 billion, rising to about $19.4 billion if Microsoft takes more. | [Nebius 6-K](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1513845/000110465925088312/tm2525580d1_6k.htm) |
| 2025-07-22 | OpenAI | Oracle | Compute contract | — | 4.5 gigawatts of Stargate data-centre capacity developed by Oracle; neither company disclosed the value. | [OpenAI announcement](https://openai.com/index/stargate-advances-with-partnership-with-oracle/) |
| 2025-03-03 | CoreWeave | Nvidia | Chip order | — | CoreWeave's fleet runs on Nvidia GPUs, which its customers' contracts specify; it buys them order by order, with no long-term supply contract. | [CoreWeave S-1](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1769628/000119312525044231/d899798ds1.htm) |
| 2024-11-22 | Amazon | Anthropic | Equity investment | $4B | A further $4 billion, bringing Amazon's investment to $8 billion; AWS becomes Anthropic's primary training partner on Trainium. | [Anthropic announcement](https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-amazon-trainium) |

## Insiders: open-market trades (Form 4, codes S and P)

| Company | Sold, 90 days | Sold, 1 year | Bought, 1 year | Insiders who sold | Under a 10b5-1 plan | Last sale |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| MSFT | $24.7M | $35.3M | — | 4 | 70% | 2026-10-13 |
| GOOGL | $232.9K | $1.1M | — | 3 | 100% | 2026-09-30 |
| AMZN | $365M | $429.9M | — | 8 | 100% | 2026-10-01 |
| META | $102.7M | $124.4M | — | 10 | 99% | 2026-10-12 |
| ORCL | $5.3M | $99.3M | $3.5M | 9 | 79% | 2026-09-22 |
| NVDA | $967.6M | $1.6B | — | 8 | 15% | 2026-09-21 |
| AVGO | $250M | $979M | $373.6K | 8 | 77% | 2026-09-23 |
| AMD | $105.5M | $296.5M | — | 7 | 91% | 2026-09-15 |
| CRWV | $335.5M | $335.5M | — | 10 | 82% | 2026-10-13 |
| NBIS | $155.9M | $406.3M | $50.3K | 10 | 64% | 2026-10-12 |

## Tracked managers (13F, Q2 2026; 82 of 84 filed)

| Company | Managers holding | A quarter before | Bought or added | Reduced or sold | Net bought | Held |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| MSFT | 38 | 39 | 18 | 20 | -$1.8B | $15B |
| GOOGL | 52 | 54 | 11 | 35 | $10.9B | $75.3B |
| AMZN | 36 | 36 | 11 | 22 | -$793.1M | $21.6B |
| META | 33 | 31 | 14 | 16 | $1.6B | $14.9B |
| ORCL | 15 | 13 | 3 | 10 | -$347.5M | $2.2B |
| NVDA | 20 | 20 | 5 | 14 | -$1.9B | $8.2B |
| AVGO | 15 | 15 | 7 | 9 | -$2.7B | $2.3B |
| AMD | 9 | 5 | 6 | 3 | $166.4M | $1.5B |
| CRWV | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | -$43M | $137.2M |
| NBIS | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | $1.2B | $1.3B |

## Last 12 quarters

| Quarter | Score | Band | Hot indicators |
| --- | ---: | --- | ---: |
| 2026 Q2 | 92 | extreme | 12 of 13 |
| 2026 Q1 | 87 | extreme | 10 of 13 |
| 2025 Q4 | 88 | extreme | 11 of 13 |
| 2025 Q3 | 86 | extreme | 10 of 13 |
| 2025 Q2 | 81 | extreme | 9 of 13 |
| 2025 Q1 | 67 | elevated | 7 of 13 |
| 2024 Q4 | 74 | elevated | 9 of 13 |
| 2024 Q3 | 71 | elevated | 5 of 13 |
| 2024 Q2 | 63 | elevated | 4 of 13 |
| 2024 Q1 | 55 | elevated | 5 of 13 |
| 2023 Q4 | 54 | elevated | 4 of 13 |
| 2023 Q3 | 53 | elevated | 3 of 13 |

---

Source: https://sweetvaluelab.com/tools/ai-bubble (SweetValueLab, free, no account). Quarterly statements and daily closes from Financial Modeling Prep. Research and educational data, not investment advice; nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security.