The AI Bubble Isn’t Bursting This Year

But It’s Running Head-On Into the Power Grid

This essay was contributed by Stephanie Haycock , founder of Wonder Works Consulting. Advising organizations on product strategy and innovation across global content supply chains.

Everyone keeps asking whether the AI bubble will burst in 2026. It’s the wrong question.

Bubbles collapse when belief outruns reality. AI’s challenge isn’t belief—capital isn’t fleeing, users aren’t abandoning tools like ChatGPT, and large tech firms are still investing fiercely in infrastructure. What’s running up against a hard limit isn’t investor sentiment—it’s basic resources: electricity and the people who make that infrastructure work.

Servers don’t run on hype. They run on power, real estate, skilled labor, and access to a grid that can deliver both reliably and affordably. And increasingly, that power isn’t available where companies want it, when they want it, or at the price they assumed would always be there. If AI hits a wall in the next few years, it won’t look like the dot-com crash of 2000—no dr…