AI Boom Spending Hits $165 Billion as Cash Flow Shrinks

The biggest technology companies are spending a huge amount of money to build artificial intelligence, or AI.

Together they have spent about $165 billion on computers, chips, and giant data centres.

This spending uses up so much cash that the money left over, called free cash flow, has dropped a lot.

Last year the leftover money was $60 billion, and now it is only $7 billion.

A company called Jefferies thinks that number could go below zero soon, meaning the companies would spend more money than they bring in.

The computers they buy also lose value over time, which is called depreciation, and that cost is rising too.

But there is good news as well.

Their cloud business, where other companies rent their computers, grew by 38% to $126 billion.

The companies that make the chips and machines are making money right now, while the big tech companies have to wait longer for their payoff.

In the end, everyone is watching to see if all this AI spending will be worth it.