纽约，10月22日：关于下一轮人工智能（AI）基础设施建设的相关公告于周四如期发布。
NEW YORK, Oct 22 : The tab for the next round of the AI buildout came due on Thursday.
在Meta Platforms（这家斥巨资建设数据中心等基础设施以推动AI发展的企业）宣布将发行新股票以筹集资金后的第二天，投资者纷纷抛售了Meta Platforms以及其他众多与AI产业相关的公司的股票。Meta Platforms的股价下跌了8%，创下自7月以来的最大跌幅；SpaceX的股价下跌了9%，而作为AI产业领头羊的半导体巨头Nvidia的股价也下跌了4%。纳斯达克综合指数正朝着四个月来的最大跌幅方向发展。
Investors sold shares of Meta Platforms and a wealth of companies central to the AI trade, a day after Meta - one of the so-called hyperscalers spending billions to build data centers and other infrastructure supporting the AI boom - said it would issue a new class of shares that will help it raise funds. Meta fell 8 per cent, its largest drop since July. SpaceX declined 9 per cent and semiconductor giant Nvidia - a bellwether of the AI trade - dropped 4 per cent. The Nasdaq Composite was on track for its largest decline in four months.
此外，半导体公司Lam Research在公布业绩后股价暴跌10%，这也进一步打压了市场情绪，导致半导体板块的跌幅达到自7月以来的最大水平。
A 10 per cent plunge in shares of semiconductor company Lam Research following its results also weighed on sentiment and sent the semiconductor index to its largest decline since July.
此次股价下跌是对AI产业的又一次严峻考验：这个长期项目的成本不断上升，其回报仍存在不确定性，且收益分配可能极不均衡。过去一年里，许多科技公司为AI研发项目借入了巨额资金；但如今华尔街预计，随着利率上升，Meta Platforms等公司将不得不出售大量股票来筹集资金，这将进一步增加流通在市场上的股票数量，从而对股价产生压力。
The pullback is the latest test for the AI trade, focusing on the rising costs of a long-term project the payoffs from which remain uncertain and will likely be unevenly distributed. Tech firms have borrowed huge sums over the past year for AI spending, but Wall Street now expects that higher interest rates mean the likes of Meta will sell billions of dollars in stock to fund the next round of building – putting pressure on share prices by increasing the number of shares outstanding.
尽管过去一个月市场波动剧烈，但美国主要股指仍维持在历史高位。
It is an unwelcome development in a market where major US stock indexes remain near all-time highs despite a punishing month of volatile trading.
Miller Tabak公司的首席市场策略师Matthew Maley表示：“市场的担忧核心在于‘所有这些投资是否能够带来回报’。”纽约Great Hill Capital LLC的董事长Thomas Hayes也认为，投资者对投资回报的担忧是导致股价下跌的主要原因；同时，Nvidia首席执行官Jensen Huang关于小型AI公司面临融资瓶颈的言论也加剧了市场的抛售情绪。
Selling started with "the big question about the (return on investment) on all the spending," said Matthew Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak. "It's just becoming more and more evident to people that it's going to take a lot longer." Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital LLC in New York, agreed that ROI concerns are central while also citing reported remarks by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about a financing bottleneck for smaller AI companies as contributing to the selling.
Meta周三表示，将利用新发行的C类股（不具备投票权）为人工智能支出及其他优先事项提供资金。Meta还将全年支出预测的下限从1300亿美元上调至1350亿美元，上限维持在1450亿美元不变。
Meta on Wednesday said it would use new Class C shares, which hold no voting power, to fund AI spending and other priorities. Meta also raised the low end of its annual spending forecast to $135 billion from $130 billion, with the high end unchanged at $145 billion.
这一支出水平将需要投资者在未来的股票发售中大量参与。Meta报告称，第三季度自由现金流为负21.2亿美元，而去年同期为正106.3亿美元。这是Meta十多年来首次出现现金流烧损。
That level of spending will require lots of investor participation in coming stock sales. Meta reported negative free cash flow of $2.12 billion in the third quarter, compared with positive free cash flow of $10.63 billion a year earlier. It was the first cash burn at Meta in more than a decade.
“支出增加、自由现金流为负、支出产生的收入不足，（这些因素）让投资者担心这只不过有点像个无底洞，”康涅狄格州费尔菲尔德Dakota Wealth高级投资组合经理Robert Pavlik表示。
“More spending, negative free cash flow, not enough revenue being generated from the spend (is) concerning investors that this is just sort of a bit of a money pit,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut.
这一举动凸显了市场对人工智能投资如何融资的担忧。过去一年，追踪多家最大人工智能参与者感知违约风险的信用违约互换价格上涨，Meta的信用违约互换周四触及纪录高位——反映出市场对当前巨额支出最终将由谁受益最多存在不确定性。
The action highlights concern over how AI investment will be paid for. Credit default swaps tracking perceived default risk of many of the biggest AI players have risen over the past year, with Meta’s hitting a record on Thursday – reflecting uncertainty over who will benefit most from the sums being spent now.
市场施压迅速削减人工智能支出的新迹象，周四迅速转化为广泛的市场抛售，反映出预期任何人工智能投资回撤都将冲击美国增长，导致美国国债价格大幅上涨。
Fresh signs of market pressure to curb spending on AI quickly translated on Thursday into a broad market selloff reflecting expectations that any AI pullback would hit US growth, resulting in a sharp rally in Treasury prices.
“市场似乎正在实时重新定价，因人工智能重置而引发美国‘增长恐慌’的概率，”野村证券策略师Charlie McElligott在致客户的报告中写道。
“The market seems to be real-time repricing the probabilities of a US ‘growth scare’ off the back of the AI reset,” Nomura Securities strategist Charlie McElligott wrote in a note to clients.
周四的抛售增加了所谓“新云”公司的压力，这些公司处于人工智能建设的核心地位，其中Nebius在宣布获得花旗集团35亿美元新授信额度后下跌7%，CoreWeave下跌9%，其无担保债券收益率在上周的人工智能抛售中飙升至15%。
Thursday’s selloff added to the pressure on the so-called neocloud companies at the heart of the AI buildout, with Nebius off 7 per cent after announcing a new $3.5 billion credit line from Citigroup and CoreWeave, whose unsecured bond yields soared to 15 per cent in last week’s AI selloff, down 9 per cent.
美国银行分析师Tal Liani在周四的一份报告中表示，他维持对CoreWeave股票的“买入”评级和140美元的目标价，展望下个月的财报发布，但他表示认为该公司将需要筹集200亿美元以履行对客户的承诺——这种前景目前正在整个科技行业引发投资者焦虑。
Bank of America analyst Tal Liani said in a report on Thursday he maintains a buy rating and a price target of $140 on CoreWeave stock heading into next month’s earnings report, though he said he believes the firm will need to raise $20 billion to fund commitments to customers - the sort of prospect that is generating investor anxiety now across the technology industry.
“没人担心Meta、亚马逊或谷歌获得所需的融资，”Maley说。“但如果对小公司来说融资变得过于昂贵，那么不需要发生全面崩溃就会让人感到不安。”
"Nobody is worried about Meta or Amazon or Google getting the financing they need," Maley said. "But if it gets prohibitive for smaller companies, then you don't have to have an implosion of things to make people nervous."