AI’s hidden $3tn bill could wreck the world economy

Chris Price Mon, 28 September 2026 at 2:36 pm CEST 6 min read $AAPL+WL $GOOGL+WL $MSFT+WL META ORCL Oracle attempted to delay repayments on its massive Project Jupiter data centre project in New Mexico last week, citing force majeure - Project Jupiter In Adam McKay's 2015 Oscar-winning film The Big Short, Christian Bale portrays Michael Burry, the offbeat hedge-fund manager who first spots cracks in the US subprime mortgage bubble. Burry is a well-known contrarian investor, nicknamed "Cassandra" by Warren Buffett for his oft-ignored warnings about lesser-spotted problems buried in the financial system. Now Burry has a new target in his sights : a $3tn (£2.6tn) bill he says is being hidden by AI companies which threatens to wreck the global economy. In a recent essay, Burry dug deep into the arcane filings made by Big Tech to regulators to uncover a string of data centre debts he said risks popping the AI bubble. Apple, Google owner Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle have ploughed enormous sums into building data centres crucial for the adoption of AI.