The Dynamo and the Token
Techstrong.ai, Monday, July 6th, 2026
AI's massive infrastructure spending echoes past booms, and value will migrate away from grid builders.
Alan Shimel examines hyperscaler AI infrastructure spending, projecting the four largest to invest about $725 billion in 2026, up 77% from 2025. He draws parallels to railroads, telecom, and electrification, where massive spending, hype, and price compression eventually shift value to higher economic layers.
His thesis: fortunes from AI will not go to those building the grid but to organizations restructuring around cheap, ubiquitous intelligence. Durable advantage comes from workflow integration, proprietary data, organizational restructuring, and memory systems rather than infrastructure.
The piece introduces a white paper on these infrastructure cycles and value creation patterns.