AI Executives Call for Slowdown: Who Will Be Most Affected?
A recent statement by prominent AI and tech executives has sparked concerns about a potential slowdown in AI development. The CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, as well as senior executives at Microsoft and Google, have expressed support for a temporary slowdown to address safety issues related to the technology.
Seeking Alpha analysts were asked which companies would be most impacted by an AI slowdown. Carla Magliocco stated that while regulation might not be a concern, a reduction in language model adoption could negatively affect hyperscalers like Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle.
Magliocco noted that big companies wouldn't be the most affected, but rather those operating at a loss and reliant on long-term deals to build data centers. CoreWeave, Hut 8 Corp., IREN, Nebius NBIS, could be severely impacted. Shailja Sharma agreed that the AI supply chain would be exposed, but highlighted the distinction between training compute capacity and inference tokens.
Sharma pointed out that inference tokens are expected to grow significantly by 2030, while memory sales have declined following the news. She emphasized that companies with contracts and high capex commitments, such as Broadcom AVGO and Marvell MRVL, would be more exposed. JR Research shared similar concerns about neoclouds like CoreWeave and Nebius NBIS.