Money seems to endlessly flow in the AI space, whether it’s Nvidia announcing a $100 billion investment in OpenAI or OpenAI planning to build more massive data centers before the first $500 billion project is even completed. Eventually, some of the folks who have poured money into these ventures are going to expect to see some return on investment. According to a research note from Deutsche Bank, it’s getting harder and harder to see how that is going to happen.

Fortune reports that a note written by George Saravelos of Deutsche Bank warned that spending in the AI sector is “parabolic.” In fact, it is so vast, the researcher said, that it might single-handedly be propping up the American economy. “AI machines—in quite a literal sense—appear to be saving the U.S. economy right now,” he wrote. “In the absence of tech-related spending, the U.S. would be close to, or in, recession this year.” That checks out: earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported capital expenditure spending for AI contributed more to growth in the US economy than all consumer spending combined has so far this year.

If you want to narrow it down even further, you can. Saravelos pointed to chipmaker Nvidia specifically and says the company is “currently carrying the weight of U.S. economic growth.” All that has to happen for the company to continue shouldering the entirety of the economy on its back is for its growth to be endlessly exponential. No problem, right? “The bad news is that in order for the tech cycle to continue contributing to GDP growth, capital investment needs to remain parabolic. This is highly unlikely,” Saravelos warned.

Shoot.

Now, you don’t really have to be an economist to know that it’s usually a bad idea to have all your eggs in one basket. But just in case, here is one to tell us: Torsten Sløk, the chief economist at asset management firm Apollo, wrote last week that “The bottom line is once again that there is an extreme degree of concentration in the S&P 500, and equity investors are dramatically overexposed to AI.”

To put some numbers to it, here’s some math from a recent report published by consulting company Bain & Company. The firm says that “AI’s compute demand grows at more than twice the rate of Moore’s Law,” and by 2030, the computing power needed to satisfy AI demand would come at a cost of two trillion dollars per year. “The world is still $800 billion short to keep pace with demand,” Bain & Co writes. 

Pair that with the report that came out of MIT earlier this year, which found that just 5% of businesses that have adopted generative AI tools have managed to achieve “rapid revenue acceleration,” while the rest have largely fallen flat, and it becomes a little hard to see the case for profitability being just around the corner. But hey, who knows, maybe we’re just another small $500 billion investment away from making it all click. Any takers?

Trump this week said Powell should “resign immediately,” if allegations from an administration official that the central banker misled lawmakers over renovations to the Fed’s headquarters prove true. The remark added to growing criticism of the Fed chair by Trump, who has demanded aggressive interest rate cuts and signaled he may nominate a successor before Powell’s term ends.

Powell has resisted pressure to ease monetary policy and said he won’t step down if asked by the president, given the Fed’s independence. While acknowledging cost overruns related to the renovation work, Powell has disputed portions of reports about the issue and called them “flatly misleading.”

George Saravelos, Deutsche’s global head of FX strategy, said in a report to clients that the market is “pricing a very low probability” of Powell being removed from office. He pointed to Polymarket, a betting platform, which assigned less than a 20% chance of it happening, and noted that the dollar has been broadly stable recently. 

If Trump were to force Powell out, the subsequent 24 hours would probably see a drop of at least 3% to 4% in the trade-weighted dollar, as well as a 30 to 40 basis point fixed-income selloff, Saravelos said. The greenback and bonds would carry a “persistent” risk premium, he said, adding that investors may also grow anxious about the potential politicization of the Fed’s swap lines with other central banks.

“Investors would likely interpret such an event as a direct affront to Fed independence, putting the central bank under extreme institutional duress,” Saravelos said. “With the Fed sitting at the pinnacle of the global dollar monetary system, it is also stating the obvious that the consequences would reverberate far beyond US borders.”

How markets continue to react beyond the initial news would depend on whether other Fed officials publicly coalesced around the central bank’s independence, Trump’s nomination for Powell’s successor and the state of the economy, Saravelos said.

“Beyond that, we worry about the very vulnerable external funding position which the US economy currently finds itself in,” he said. “This raises the risk of far larger and more disruptive price moves than the ones we have outlined.”

In another report, ING Groep NV strategists including Padhraic Garvey said an early exit by Powell was “unlikely,” but would lead to a steepening of the Treasury yield curve as investors priced in lower rates, faster inflation and diminished Fed independence.

They said it would also create a “toxic mix” for the dollar, with the euro, yen and Swiss franc set to benefit most.