These firms you've never heard of are feeding fears the AI bubble could burst

Several neocloud firms have their roots in the volatile crypto mining industry, made of companies that generate cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin.Crypto miners use some of the same kind of physical infrastructure that is used to develop AI.CoreWeave was founded in 2017 with a focus on mining Ethereum.IREN, Core Scientific and Applied Digital also started in crypto mining.Their infrastructure left them well-positioned when AI exploded in 2022 with the introduction of OpenAI's ChatGPT.One outlier is Nebius, which was known as Yandex NV when it was part of Russia's version of Google before splitting off and changing its name in 2024.Now, the success of these firms hinges on the fate of major AI developers and hyperscalers – even larger data centre operators which neocloud firms often count as key customers."There is just an enormous amount of spending getting injected into the system," said Melissa Otto, head of Visible Alpha Research at S&P Global. "It's an arms race."And neoclouds have benefitted.But the trade-off of their model is "greater financial risk" in the face of change, said Forrester VP and principal analyst Charlie Dai.That includes any adjustments that their Big Tech cu...