Concerns about AI's social impact have been growing since the boom began. As real as those are, physical and financial limits are more likely to slow AI's march.

Warnings against job losses and other social ills have intensified lately. Anthropic in June suggested AI labs consider slowing down development efforts over social-impact concerns. Old-guard tech billionaire Bill Gates wrote in a long essay last week that AI was moving faster than society could adjust to job displacement and other problems it creates.

"I believe we need time to prepare for the period of social, political, and economic upheaval we are about to enter," he wrote, proposing a tax on robots and AI tokens.

Yet the leading AI labs and Big Tech AI spenders have big incentives keep pushing forward.

Sure, they are concerned enough about cybersecurity threats posed by some of their most advanced models to slow down and adjust. But Anthropic and OpenAI are racing toward IPOs. They are gambling billions of dollars of investors' money on the notion that AI isn't only socially transformative, but is a viable, profitable business. Big-tech companies like Alphabet and Meta Platforms also have too much staked on AI to step back.

There is some chance that political forces could slow AI's development. Anti-AI sentiment is becoming increasingly serious, and moratoria on data-center development in the U.S. are growing.

At the Federal level, a bill introduced in Congress in July would give the government the power to shut down rogue AI models. Other bills have proposed studying AI's impact on jobs.

Even so, the prospect of political action that actually holds back the development of leading AI models seems distant at best. President Trump this week took to social media to blast people who resist data centers, placing his administration firmly on the pro-development side. That is significant given the largest data-center project in the world is set to be built on Federal land.

China acts as another deterrent for any AI slowdown. China wouldn't take its foot off the gas if the U.S. held its companies back. As long as AI continues to be a crux of geopolitical competition, giving Chinese companies time to catch up in the AI race isn't a palatable option for the U.S.

Circumstances, of course, could change in ways that raise the urgency of a forced slowdown. If AI-linked job losses start to sweep through the global workforce, for example, there may be more to be gained politically from a pause.

The more likely scenario is that the natural forces of the boom slow it down anyway. AI is already putting major strains on the U.S. power grid and is raising electricity prices, which is one reason why pauses on data-center projects have legs politically.

AI spending is also encountering more resistance. Some of the big tech companies that have fueled the boom are free-cash-flow negative because of their AI outlays. Prices of corporate bonds linked to AI are falling as tech companies gear up to raise more debt to grow their computing infrastructure.

And returns on AI spending are still murky nearly four years into the boom. It may take time, but development will have to slow if it becomes clearer that companies can't make back what they are spending.

The social impact of AI is real. For AI developers and investors, though, dollars and cents are what ultimately will matter.

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SB Energy Files For IPO

The SoftBank unit that is developing what could be the world's biggest data-center project has registered to list its shares on the Nasdaq. The listing aims to raise $5 billion to $7 billion, alongside an investment from Nvidia of $3 billion.

It is an early step in what is shaping up to be a complex package of financing to support the Ohio development. That aims to house 10 gigawatts of computing infrastructure-an unprecedented amount. OpenAI has signed a lease for the project, backstopped by a commitment from Nvidia to take it over if OpenAI defaults. To complicate matters further, OpenAI invested $500 million in SB Energy in January, while SB Energy issued warrants to OpenAI that are now worth about $5.5 billion.

The Number

The value of a cloud-computing deal Anthropic recently signed with the startup Lambda, which Nvidia is backing by taking on the underlying data-center lease.

What the Humans Are Saying

AI in Charts

Concern has been rising over Nvidia's involvement in securing financing for data-center projects it is supplying and for investments in companies that are also customers. But there is another side of Nvidia's supply-chain ledger that is also growing concerningly large.

Nvidia can only make as many chips as its supply chain can produce. And since Nvidia isn't a chip manufacturer, it is reliant on others to keep production humming and revenue growing. In normal times, making the supply chain work is merely a question of sizing and timing orders. In today's world, where supplies of critical components are short, Nvidia is putting more of its money on the line to make sure it gets a big slice of the available supply.

This in some ways is good for the company: It means Nvidia is using its financial muscle to maximize profits during an unprecedented upswing in demand. But it also increases the pain should the boom turn to bust. If demand craters, Nvidia will still be on the hook for purchases of inputs from its supply chain-a problem that only grows with its soaring commitments.

AI in the Wild

The explosion of AI's use in job interviews-including by candidates lying about where they live or secretly working for North Korea-is causing employers to change tactics. They'll ask candidates to remove Zoom backgrounds or look around a room, attempting to check whether there is a person or device feeding them answers.

Other Highlights From the Week in AI

OpenAI hit back in a legal filing at Apple's trade-secret theft accusations.

Chinese memory player CXMT reported a huge jump in revenue in its first earnings since its public listing, driven by AI demand.

Kioxia Holdings and Sandisk are spending $31 billion to expand their manufacturing of flash memory, which has been in high demand.

About Us

WSJ AI & Business is a weekly look at AI's transformation of the business world. This newsletter was curated and edited by Asa Fitch. Reach him at asa.fitch@wsj.com (if you're reading this in your inbox, you can just hit reply). Got a tip for us? Here's how to submit.