That is real money being spent. And much of it appears to be money spent on bitcoin mining. As long as everybody who owns bitcoin believes in its inherent value, the value is maintained. Sort of like the collector price for a 1965 Mustang or a Honus Wagner baseball card.
If/when the air pops out of the bitcoin balloon, there will be huge capital losses taken that would affect income tax collections. Even if bitcoin continues to hold value, some of the data centers will fail for various reasons and the capital losses will appear.
But of course, MAYBE the AI craze is not like the dotcom bubble, or pet rocks.
AI is not crypto. There are some overlaps but they are completely different bubbles, if you will.
“capital expenditures for AI contributed more to growth in the economy in the past two quarters than all of consumer spending”
Economy grows, people have less to do.