They’re just a couple of the many robots I encountered this week designed for a range of purposes, from playing chess to performing spinal surgery. These are common occurrences on the Las Vegas Convention Center’s show floor during CES, which wrapped on Friday. Every January, companies from around the world gather to flaunt new technologies, products and services.
The show is just as much spectacle as it is substance; many of the most eye-catching wares either haven’t come to fruition (like flying cars) or are wildly expensive and impractical (think TVs that cost tens of thousands of dollars). But CES provides a glimpse into the bets being made by industry giants like Nvidia, Intel, Amazon and Samsung.
AI once again dominated the conference. Companies showed off everything from humanoid robots they claim will staff factories to refrigerators you can open with your voice to the next-generation chips that will power it all. CES, in some ways, turned the Strip into a bubble of its own, shielded from AI skepticism.
CNN asked a handful of tech executives at CES about an AI bubble and how it might impact their businesses. Some said their businesses aren’t relevant to the bubble concerns, while others expressed optimism about AI’s potential and said they are focused on building products that show it.
“We’re in the earliest stage of what’s possible. So when I hear we’re in a bubble, I’m like… This isn’t a fad,” said Panos Panay, Amazon’s devices and services chief. “It’s not going to pass.”
Tech companies poured more than $61 billion into data center investments in 2025, according to S&P Global, fueling concerns that investments may be far outpacing demand.
And investments are only expected to grow, with Goldman Sachs reporting that AI companies are estimated to invest more than $500 billion in capital expenditures this year. Julien Garran, researcher and partner for research firm MacroStrategy Partnership, said in a report last year that the AI bubble is 17 times bigger than the dot com bubble.
Most of the concerns around an AI bubble have centered on investments in data centers built for AI tasks that are too power-hungry for devices like laptops and smartphones to handle alone. Nvidia, the poster child of the AI boom and the company at the center of the bubble debate, announced at CES that the next version of its computing platform that powers those data centers is arriving in the second half of this year.
