Is the AI boom paying for itself — in money, and for the world? Three measured numbers, from public filings. No crash prediction; the direction of travel is the signal.
Position shows the two coverage numbers; the dot's colour shows how the build is financed — green cash-funded, amber leverage rising, red debt-carried. The amber trail is AI's own path since 2023; grey boxes and arrows are past booms and the direction they travelled, placed from economic-history figures.
The coverage map divides by capital cost on both axes, which can couple them to the interest-rate environment. This view plots the raw annual flows instead — private earnings against value to the world — with the dot sized by the capital cost it must cover.
The whole point of this dashboard is the direction of travel, not the level. Each line is the fixed-mid estimate at past quarter-ends, rebuilt from filed capex and the AI revenue firms had disclosed by then. The shaded band is the ±20% revision range around the mid; a move is only called (▲/▼) when the line leaves the prior quarter's band and the next quarter confirms it — so single-quarter noise never counts.