Nvidia is turning GPUs into capital, but questions exist around sustainability — AI companies are financing hardware like debt, as bank warns of ‘sharp market correction’

Compute used to be something you rented. You spun up a few cloud instances and paid your AWS bill. If you needed more, you just scaled up your usage. That model still exists, but with the generative AI boom, it’s breaking down.

Supply shortages and hardware hoarding, alongside capital excess, have given rise to a strange model where AI companies are financing GPUs in the same way airlines finance planes — via multi-billion dollar debt, leaseback schemes, and vendor equity.