A data center executive has fired back at critics of the AI boom, comparing their growing skepticism to a fictional disinformation campaign from the new "Superman" movie. Frank Holmes, executive chairman of HIVE Digital Technologies, used a viral GIF from the film during the company’s recent earnings webcast to make his point. The clip shows a group of monkeys furiously typing on keyboards, each producing the same message: “ONLY AN IDIOT WOULD BACK SUPERMAN.” In the movie, this digital onslaught is orchestrated by Lex Luthor, Superman’s archenemy, to undermine the hero’s public image. Holmes used the moment to draw a parallel with real-world criticism of AI, particularly from high-profile investors like Michael Burry and Jim Chanos. Holmes displayed a slide featuring images of Burry and Chanos, followed by headlines highlighting their recent warnings about AI overinvestment. “Jim Chanos comes out and says: ‘Short the bitcoin miners, short Nvidia, short the high-performance computing, the hyperscalers—there’s too much debt,’” Holmes said, mimicking the tone of the critics. “And Michael Burry is coming out, a couple of weeks ago, again shorting this market. And it really starts to grow, this negativity on the ecosystem.” As the GIF played, Holmes remarked, “Well, the same thing happened out of nowhere—this negativity started showing up on Instagram, YouTube, and X.” He argued that the sudden wave of pessimism echoed the movie’s narrative, where coordinated online attacks erode trust in a powerful figure, even when they’re doing the right thing. HIVE Digital Technologies operates energy-efficient data centers in Canada, Sweden, and Paraguay, powered by renewable energy. Holmes dismissed concerns about excessive spending on AI infrastructure, calling the demand for data center capacity “immense.” He suggested that short-term traders were amplifying fear to fuel their own bets against the market. Burry, best known for his role in the 2008 financial crisis film "The Big Short," reiterated his caution over the weekend on X. He questioned the sustainability of massive AI spending, asking, “When does the spending for AI data center buildout actually end?” He pointed out that tech giants are diverting all their cash flow into AI, borrowing heavily, and financing projects in ways they haven’t before—driven by urgency, but also by uncertainty about long-term returns. Chanos echoed similar concerns, asking whether all the major AI players and hyperscalers will actually become highly profitable. “But are they ALL going to be extremely profitable?” he wrote. “Each one is spending like they will be. They’re betting it won’t be a ‘winner take all’ scenario like search. We’ll see.” Despite the skepticism, Holmes and other industry leaders maintain that the AI infrastructure buildout is not a bubble but a foundational shift, comparing the current moment to the early days of the internet. The data center boom, they argue, is not driven by hype alone—but by real, growing demand for computing power to train and run advanced AI systems.