Follow the Money
The circular economy of AI: chipmakers invest in labs that buy chips; clouds fund labs that buy cloud; the same dollars get announced twice. 79 live deals, $2,008B at face value plus 16 with no disclosed figure — each traced to a source. Data as of 2026-08-30 · JSON.
Showing 5 of 82 deals for US federal government. Clear.
Bubble Thermometer: 15/100 — cool
15/100 (cool): "bubble" said 0× this week (flat from 0); AI basket market spread unknown; $0B of deals announced this month.
Components: talk 0 · markets 50 · money 0 (weights 40/30/30). Each input links to where it comes from: "bubble" in this week's feed (0, prior week 0) · the AI basket against QQQ over a month · $0B announced in 2026-09. An attention index from this site's own data; it measures temperature, not the future.
Daily readings since 2026-09-16. JSON
US federal government in focus: its curves keep their colour, the rest fade. The 22 busiest counterparties and the 3 live deals between them that match the filter. Click a company for its page, click a curve to jump to that deal and its source. Curve width scales with the amount (log); colour is the deal type; dashed means reported but not confirmed by the parties; thin means no figure was disclosed.
Announced per month — US federal government
Face value as announced; the grey stubs are deals later cancelled or never closed, which stay out of the total. Click a month to list its deals.
Biggest counterparties
Announced and reported amounts at face value; "up to" commitments count in full — that is how the headlines count them, and why every row carries its notes. Every company name is a page.
5 deals, with sources
Amounts link to the source they come from; companies link to their pages; types, months and statuses filter the page; the # is the deal's anchor.
| Deal | Amount ▾ | Type | Announced | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI → US government | $42.6B PROPOSAL ONLY (Financial Times, 2026-07-02): a 5% stake - about $42.6B at $852B - in a public-wealth vehicle. Early stage, would need Congress; not executed. | Government stake / grant | 2026-07-02 reported, not confirmed by the parties | CNBC, citing Financial Times · second source single-source figure #082e42 |
| US government → Intel | $8.9B 433.3M shares at $20.47 = 9.9% stake, funded from $5.7B of undisbursed CHIPS grants + $3.2B Secure Enclave; passive (no board seat), votes with the board; plus a 5-year warrant for a further 5% at $20 exercisable only if Intel's foundry ownership falls below 51%. | Government stake / grant | 2025-08-22 closed / funded | Intel newsroom #eee918 |
| US government → TSMC | $6.6B Taxonomy stretch: CHIPS Act GRANT (up to $6.6B direct funding, milestone-based) plus up to $5B of proposed loans for TSMC Arizona; no equity taken. | Government stake / grant | 2024-11-15 closed / funded | US Commerce Department #b50529 |
| Nvidia → US government | undisclosed 15% of H20 China sales as a condition of export licences (August 2025); H200 later allowed with a 25% cut (December 2025). Realised payments not disclosed. | Revenue share | 2025-08-11 announced | CBS News (Reuters/FT-reported, confirmed by Trump) · second source single-source figure #4cbbb3 |
| AMD → US government | undisclosed 15% of MI308 China sales as an export-licence condition; realised amounts not disclosed. | Revenue share | 2025-08-11 announced | CBS News single-source figure #d3900f |
Deal Watch — reported in the last 45 days (automatic, unverified)
Headlines from the feed go through a model that extracts who-pays-whom; a report appears here only when two different publishers agree on the parties and the amounts agree within 25%. Every publisher name links to the headline. Nothing in this box is in the verified graph above until a data review confirms it against a primary source.
No two-source reports in the window — the extractor needs an AI provider key.
The bubble reads
- AI's $600B Question — Sequoia Capital (David Cahn), 2024-06-20. Annualised AI infrastructure spend implies about $600B of yearly AI revenue is needed to earn a return; most of it is missing.
- The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025 — MIT NANDA, 2025-07. Despite $30-40B of enterprise GenAI spend, about 95% of pilots show no measurable P&L impact.
- Bridging a $1.5tr Data Center Financing Gap — Morgan Stanley Research, 2025-08. About $2.9T of global data-center capex through 2028, only about half fundable from hyperscaler cash flow; the rest must come from bonds, private credit and securitisation.
- $2 trillion in new revenue needed to fund AI's scaling trend — Bain & Company, 6th Global Technology Report, 2025-09-23. Meeting projected 2030 compute demand needs about $2T of annual AI revenue; the industry is about $800B short.
- IMF and Bank of England join growing chorus warning of an AI bubble — IMF Global Financial Stability Report / Bank of England FPC, via CNBC, 2025-10-09. Both flagged AI-concentrated equity valuations comparable to the 2000 dot-com peak and the risk of an abrupt correction.
- World Outlook: '1999 meets 1990' — Deutsche Bank Research (Jim Reid), via Investing.com, 2026-06-06. Frames 2026 as 1999-style tech enthusiasm colliding with a 1990-style oil shock, with an AI investment boom propping up US growth.
Method: a deal is listed only when it traces to a press release, an SEC filing, or top-tier reporting, with its date and status. Amounts are as announced or credibly reported; status says whether a deal closed, is staged, or was only reported. Not investment advice.