This is satire. Events, dialogue and quotations in this article are invented for comic effect. It is not a factual news report.

Technology companies are preparing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure, prompting investors to ask whether the industry can turn extraordinary demand into extraordinary profits. Executives offered the traditional corporate reassurance: the numbers are very large, and the future is even larger.

At a fictional investor briefing, one executive said the strategy would unlock efficiencies. Asked when those efficiencies might cover the cost of the data centres, he said the answer was available through a premium chatbot subscription.

The long term, analysts were told, is the period after shareholders stop asking about the short term. Meanwhile, companies are racing to build capacity before demand catches up, a little like opening 400 restaurants because everyone says they are hungry.

Executives remain confident. “We are building the infrastructure for the future,” one said. “If the future does not arrive on schedule, we have enough computing power to generate a very convincing presentation explaining why.”