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It Appears That the AI Bubble Has Just Burst in China
(futurism.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2026
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But At What Cost?!
Also, so much of this seems to undersell the global common denominator: skyrocketing energy prices.
China is getting hit earlier because they've relied so heavily on the Persian Gulf and Russia to date. By contrast, the US - a major energy exporter - can remain insulated (and even reap a fat dividend) as their energy export values balloon.
AI is voracious for energy, so Chinese data centers got hit faster and harder than their American peers. I would not assume this rebounds the same way in the States, because the US is willing to subsidize AI development AND fossil fuel consumption in a way China is not.
I think this is just blatantly wrong. China has vastly more energy capacity that the US and, 3-4x what the USA has. China has the entire USAs energy capacity purely as renewables. The entire time, the competition around energy has been a moot point for China. They don't need more efficient or powerful chips because they had the energy spare to just use more. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang made a good statement on this point. The reason for this, whatever it is, could be entirely unrelated to energy.
Okay, now look at per capita energy.
That is extremely inaccurate
I think it's partially innacurate to compare per capita energy consumption for the two nations.
The average American lives a vastly different lifestyle to someone in china, consider that per capita consumption of China is now higher than that of the EU. It's not the whole picture. An average American uses almost four times as much energy as a Chinese or European person at home.
If you're talking about standard of living, sure, per capita makes sense. There's no argument that for the majority of people in the US their standard of living is probably objectively higher.
However, China's industrial electricity usage per capita has overtaken that of the US long ago.
That hasn't been true in decades.
What are you using to calculate standard of living?
Certainly not life expectancy, education, housing, or cost of living.
can you clarify what energy the US is exporting?
despair
The US frequently exports light crude oil at a premium while purchasing heavy crude for less. The refineries in the US are largely set up for heavy crude, so it works out and nets a high profit for oil companies.
The United States is a major energy exporter and importer, especially for petroleum
Not sure about the person you responded to's specific context but the US sells energy on energy markets. Primarily to neighbors.
Source, currently interviewing for a major ISO and have had to learn this shit
Colonialism and hate.
The US is the largest exporter of Natural Gas on earth. and Top 3 for oil, like other Lemmings mentioned.
Debt
We're damn good at it too.
Millionaires trade it like baseball cards.
China built a lot of solar and wind projects, so they've been divesting from oil and gas, so a crash lets them stockpile oil for other purposes.
They've been building wind/solar because they've exhausted oil/gas supplies.
But when Russia started opening up trade, they were happily drinking from the fire hose of cheap fossil fuels. And they're still some of the biggest coal power consumers.
They've been rapidly rolling out Solar/Wind to meet a voracious demand for Wattage that fossil fuels can't meet alone. But they've also been rolling out new fossil fuel plants. And for the same reasons.