Beat Beating AI News: After the U.S. midterm elections, market concerns over tightened AI regulation and a slowdown in data center construction have intensified, leading to a significant sell-off in U.S. tech stocks. On November 5, the "Seven Sisters" of U.S. equities lost approximately $1.04 trillion in market value in a single day, with Nvidia dropping 9.26% and losing over $440 billion in market capitalization—its decline was two to four times greater than that of core clients like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

Funding pressure on AI infrastructure investments is mounting. Combined operating cash flow for Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta in Q3 this year failed to cover fixed asset expenditures, resulting in a funding gap of about $26.4 billion—compared to a $61.7 billion cash surplus from these four companies a year ago. Amazon's free cash flow shifted from a net inflow of $14.8 billion over the past 12 months to a net outflow of $42.4 billion; Meta’s free cash flow turned negative for the first time in over a decade; and Google’s long-term debt increased from around $20 billion to $125 billion.

Meanwhile, the U.S. midterm elections may impact data center construction timelines. On election day, among 41 local proposals related to data centers across 10 U.S. states, 40 were voted in favor of restricting development, with 27 restrictive or oppositional measures passing. Research firm SemiAnalysis expects policy changes to have limited impact on projects already underway by 2027, but they could disrupt planning for compute expansion in 2028 and beyond.

The report notes that over 90% of Nvidia’s revenue comes from its data center business, making its growth highly dependent on continuous downstream investment. If data center projects are delayed, cloud giants can postpone capital spending, but Nvidia may face delays in chip deliveries, making it more sensitive to infrastructure slowdowns.

Nevertheless, signs of peak AI demand have not yet emerged. Google Cloud’s operating profit reached three times that of the same period last year; AWS’s operating profit rose from $11.4 billion to $17.8 billion; and Microsoft Azure’s revenue grew by 48%. The current market concern centers not on declining demand, but on the return cycle of massive AI investments, rising financing costs, and actual compute delivery capabilities.