Jonathan Ross, CEO of AI chip startup Groq, says the current surge in AI investment—often labeled as a bubble—should be viewed not as a warning sign but as a positive indicator of widespread economic momentum. Speaking to CNBC’s Dan Murphy on the sidelines of the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia, Ross argued that bubbles, while risky, are natural byproducts of transformative technological waves. “There’s subtlety and nuance here,” Ross said. “The thing is, as always, you do want a bubble because the bubble is the sign that there’s a lot of economic activity going on, and you just attract all sorts of people, right?” He emphasized that the real issue isn’t whether an AI bubble exists, but whether investors are making informed decisions. “When you focus on the real AI innovations, you can’t put enough money into that, and there will be great returns,” Ross said. “There will also be people who make mistaken investments that don’t return.” He added, “Is the amount of money that’s paid into this AI boom going to be returned with interest? I think the answer to that is, yes. The question is, do you know how to invest in AI?” Ross, who founded Groq in 2016, previously worked as an engineer at Google, where he played a key role in designing the company’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs)—specialized chips built for AI workloads. TPUs serve as an alternative to Nvidia’s widely used GPUs in AI training and inference. His perspective aligns with that of other industry leaders. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, speaking at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit on October 14, cautioned against dismissing AI as a bubble in its entirety. “Though some of these things may be in a bubble, in total, it’ll probably pay off,” Dimon said. He urged investors to evaluate each AI initiative individually: “Are they really going to develop stuff that will have productive capability that will pay off on the investment?” Meanwhile, former Meta executive Nick Clegg, who served as the company’s president of global affairs until January 2025, acknowledged the bubble-like characteristics of the current AI frenzy. Speaking in a CNBC interview aired on October 15, Clegg noted the “absolute sort of spasm of almost daily, hourly, dealmaking” and warned of potential corrections ahead. “Of course, you have got to kind of think, ‘Oh wow, this could be headed for a correction,’” he said. Despite the caution, Ross and others believe the underlying innovation in AI is substantial and long-term. The rapid pace of investment, while potentially unsustainable in the short term, reflects genuine momentum in a field poised to reshape industries. For savvy investors, the key lies not in avoiding the bubble, but in identifying the real breakthroughs beneath the hype.