Debt-laden US data centre firms fuel fears of an AI bubble bursting as their shares lose a quarter of their value

Gartner analysts forecast that 80% of so-called neocloud firms — data centre companies leasing computing power to AI giants like OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta — will "cease independent operations" by 2030, while Forrester expects at least three to be snapped up in the near term as their financial positions weaken. CoreWeave, the dominant player in the sector, has run up $35.1bn in debt, partly because lenders base their credit assessments on its high-profile customers such as Microsoft rather than on CoreWeave itself. Over the past month, shares in CoreWeave, Nebius, IREN and Applied Digital have each fallen by around a quarter.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sought to ease concerns, describing neocloud firms as 'a small component of the overall ecosystem'.

Results from Amazon and Intel reignited worries about AI infrastructure spending, sparking a broad global tech sell-off on Friday.