Nvidia’s $800 Billion AI Test Revives Cisco-Era Warning

Nvidia NVDA has once again become the market’s favorite mirror for a much older question: when does a real technology boom start to look too expensive? TS Lombard analysts compared Nvidia’s rise with Cisco Systems CSCO during the dot-com era, as investors continue to debate whether the AI buildout can support the expectations now priced into technology shares.

The spending wave is enormous. TS Lombard estimates global AI capital expenditures could reach roughly $800 billion in 2026, while U.S. hyperscalers including Amazon AMZN, Microsoft MSFT, Alphabet GOOGL, Meta Platforms META, and Oracle ORCL are expected to spend more than $700 billion on datacenters and related infrastructure. Dario Perkins warned that Cisco once sat in a similar position during the late-1990s internet boom: strategically important, highly profitable, and central to a transformative infrastructure cycle, but still vulnerable when earnings took far longer to justify the expectations built into its share price.