China is expanding cheap AI infrastructure worldwide while the US market leans on huge debt and expensive AI, which is bad for US tech investors and good for countries wanting affordable computing.

• China announced a $39 billion data center project in Brazil and is eyeing more across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
• Chinese AI models cost 10 to 50 times less than US ones, so companies outside the US are switching. Even Uber and other firms are rationing US AI spending because it's too pricey.
• The US AI boom now drives the economy, but it's propped up by record borrowed money betting on stocks — the kind of leverage seen before the dotcom and 2008 crashes.
• China is building its own chips to bypass US export controls, exporting billions through Hong Kong, and even put a data center underwater to cut cooling costs by 90%.
• Signs of weak US AI demand are showing: Meta is now selling off spare computing capacity instead of using it all itself.

Outlook: If China keeps undercutting US AI on price and locking in emerging markets, US big tech faces a serious squeeze and the leveraged US market looks increasingly fragile.