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The Economist is reporting that the AI supply crunch has officially arrived. As demand for compute accelerates through two thousand twenty six, the infrastructure simply isn't keeping pace. Data centers, chips, and energy capacity are all straining under the load, and the bottleneck is forcing hard conversations about who gets access and at what cost.
That constraint is hitting company budgets in a very direct way. Reporting from Tom's Hardware highlights a growing realization among major firms: as AI platforms shift to per-token billing and model costs climb, human workers are increasingly the more affordable option for certain tasks. The efficiency calculus that once favored automation is quietly shifting back toward people.
And in a story that draws a sharp historical parallel, a new piece compares Meta's current public relations approach to the playbook once used by the tobacco industry — minimizing harm, funding friendly research, and shaping the narrative ahead of regulation. It's a provocative framing, and one that's likely to gain traction as scrutiny of social platforms continues to intensify.
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