Former NEC Director Gary Cohn: The market would be floundering without the AI energy trade

• AI and energy are the primary drivers of the current market, without which the market would be down.
• Companies are shifting from asset-light to asset-heavy, issuing debt and stock to fund AI infrastructure, raising questions about traditional valuation metrics.
• Cohn suggests that AI compute could become a commodity, similar to the fiber optic boom, where infrastructure was overbuilt and later monetized at deep discounts.

Gary Cohn, IBM Vice Chairman and former NEC Director, discusses the current market dynamics, highlighting that the market's positive performance is largely driven by AI and energy. He expresses concerns about the long-term valuation of companies heavily investing in AI infrastructure, drawing parallels to past tech bubbles where overbuilding led to unmonetized assets and commoditization.