{"text":[[{"start":12.31,"text":"When a chief executive asks for trillions, not billions, when raising funds you know a sector may be getting a bit too hot. "}],[{"start":19.64,"text":"In the long run, generative artificial intelligence will transform many industries and the way people work. "},{"start":25.469,"text":"But a report that OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman is talking to investors about an artificial intelligence chip project has raised a lot of questions. "}],[{"start":33.74,"text":"A person familiar with the talks was cited as saying the project could require raising as much as $7tn. "},{"start":40.069,"text":"Scoring even a fraction of that figure — more than the combined gross domestic products of the UK and France — would seem a stretch, to put it mildly. "}],[{"start":49.06,"text":"Nonetheless, it reflects just how hot the interest in AI, and the chips that power it, has become. "},{"start":55.277,"text":"The historical parallel that record-high AI-related stock valuations and fundraising targets bring to mind is the boom and bust in telecom stocks during the dotcom bubble era. "}],[{"start":65.08,"text":"Back then, investors had expected the internet to transform the world. "},{"start":69.484,"text":"Telecoms companies and hardware suppliers would then be big winners. "},{"start":73.189,"text":"The problem was the sector’s valuations were pricing in that transformation to come almost overnight. "},{"start":78.294,"text":"Now, a similar level of optimism is driving investment in AI-related companies. "}],[{"start":84.14,"text":"When the internet first became widely used, networking hardware was king. "},{"start":88.544,"text":"Servers needed to be built and connected using routers. "},{"start":91.599,"text":"Compa