{"id":1278,"date":"2026-10-28T20:42:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T02:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2026-11-05T20:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T03:43:00","slug":"the-cost-of-money-sets-the-bar-for-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/?p=1278","title":{"rendered":"The cost of money sets the bar for AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Do interest rates matter to the AI boom? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/mediacenter\/files\/FOMCpresconf20261028.pdf\">&#8220;I believe they do,&#8221;<\/a> Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said on 28 October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since the Fed&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/newsevents\/pressreleases\/monetary20260916a.htm\">September hike<\/a>, he said, investors have grown &#8220;somewhat more discerning.&#8221; In mid-October they wanted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessday.co.za\/world\/international-companies\/2026-10-15-ai-credit-fears-push-tech-default-insurance-to-record-highs\/\">15\u201316% a year<\/a> to hold <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/10\/19\/coreweave-oracle-ai-credit-stress.html\">CoreWeave&#8217;s bonds<\/a>. Meta, which burned cash last quarter, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessday.co.za\/world\/2026-10-26-meta-plans-to-raise-up-to-95bn-in-equity-to-fund-costly-ai-expansion\/\">plans to sell up to $95B of stock<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The cost of money also sets the bar for the buildout. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nber.org\/system\/files\/working_papers\/w35865\/w35865.pdf\">Columbia\/NBER study<\/a> finds US data centers due by 2032 must bring in $2.86T a year if investors require a 5% return, $3.55T at 10% and $4.33T at 15%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A plan that works at 5% may not at 15%. <em><strong>Strategist<\/strong><\/em> is built to benchmark management&#8217;s strategy against an independent alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What cost of money is your AI plan built on? <a href=\"https:\/\/strategist.intelligenxe.com\">strategist.intelligenxe.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do interest rates matter to the AI boom? &#8220;I believe they do,&#8221; Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said on 28 October. Since the Fed&#8217;s September hike, he said, investors have grown &#8220;somewhat more discerning.&#8221; In mid-October they wanted 15\u201316% a year &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/?p=1278\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kt_blocks_editor_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1280,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions\/1280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenxe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}