u/Ancient_Sort5820
You asked for sources, earlier today I wasn't at desktop sorry.
**TL;DR - Credit spigot is wide open, conditions loose. With money printer back on, acceleration and higher Fed balance sheet expansion coming soon, likely no end to the party for a long time.** SPX 7500 by EOY as a bare minimum.
Lending soaring:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1RxwN&height=490
Corporate issuance records:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-29/us-high-grade-bond-sales-top-200-billion-in-record-yearly-start
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-02/global-bond-sales-reach-1-trillion-at-their-fastest-pace-ever
Record breaking AI debt issuance:
https://www.mellon.com/insights/insights-articles/record-breaking-ai-related-debt-issuance-in-2025.html
Financial conditions continue 3+ years trend of loosening:
https://i.imgur.com/zQzK2x2.png
Excess reserves (liquidity) are steadily rising again:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1PdMc&height=490
Repo markets calming down:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1PdMg&height=490
Spreads ultra tight:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1PdMD&height=490
> Quick search shows solar cells in space achieve about 30-40% efficiency compared to 20% for terrestrial
That clearly doesn't account for either lack of atmosphere, or the fact that the panel can face the sun 24/7.
> solar cells for space use are orders of magnitude more expensive than terrestrial cells
?? false. They literally need less materials. Don't need casing or glass. Easier to produce. See my other comments. You can fit somewhere between 30-60 racks in a Starship, even with the solar panels and radiators included.
> you're outlining completely disposable data center sats
Yes. That is 100% true. They will be disposable. But think about the fact that GPUs effectively are fully depreciated after 3-4 years anyway by accounting standards.
> expensive supply chains
What is an expensive and bottlenecked supply chain is energy generation on the ground. It's not just expensive on the ground with energy costing 10-20x more, needing giant batteries, more transformers, being a drain on local municipalities, land rights, acquiring and building the buildings, cooling, etc - but the main #1 problem is that the supply chain on the ground **cannot** scale at the pace AI data centers will. Period. Unless we cut the regulations in half overnight for nuclear power, and overnight dedicated hundreds of billions of dollars to increasing the grid by 50% - not happening. Building transformers is a big bottleneck right now. So are batteries, which are needed for large data centers to smooth out usage.
Of course space has issues and drawbacks, but it beats out doing it on the ground long term. Long term being 3-5 years out.
If you are a city/county - are you going to let a data center be built near you? Create a few jobs temporarily, just to have your electricity rates go up 30-50%? No you won't. You'll either tell the AI company to fuck off, or force them to cover the increase price in electricity. Building on the ground is going to get worse and worse.
Acquiring land and building the infastructure needed for data centers will be the bottleneck. Acquiring GPUs won't be the hard part - using them effectively will.
The premarket rally is classic dead-cat-bounce behavior after 3 days of selling. Here’s what hasn’t changed:
The core problem: Big Tech just announced MASSIVE AI spending increases - Google doubling capex to $175-185B, Meta to $115-135B, Amazon to $200B (vs $147B expected). The market is questioning when/if this spending actually translates to profits.
The rotation is real: Money is flowing out of tech into value stocks at the fastest pace since 2008. Only 19% of S&P 500 stocks outperformed last year, but that’s jumped to 57% this past month - shows tech leadership is breaking down.
Weak macro backdrop: Jobs data is terrible - job openings at lowest since Sept 2020, private sector added only 22K jobs in January. This is not an environment where speculative AI spending gets rewarded.
Technical damage: Nasdaq hit new 2026 lows yesterday. Once support breaks, momentum often accelerates lower. Software stocks down 28% from highs as AI automation fears intensify.
One green premarket on low volume doesn’t reverse any of these trends. We likely need 4-8 weeks minimum for the market to digest these capex numbers and see if AI revenue growth justifies the spending. Short-term bounces are selling opportunities until proven otherwise.