Big banks acknowledge AI financing risks but keep funding the boom

America’s biggest banks spent their third-quarter earnings calls listing everything that could go wrong with financing artificial intelligence. Then they explained why they’re going to keep doing it anyway. Executives at JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley all addressed the risks of bankrolling AI infrastructure, from data centers to the power plants that keep them running. None signaled an immediate retreat. The fee income, as they see it, is simply too good to walk away from. The risks banks named, and the money they’re chasing Bank leaders pointed to two main worries. First, demand for computing power remains uncertain. Second, some of these projects may not deliver the returns their backers expect. Estimated bank exposure to AI-adjacent sectors sits at around $800 billion. That figure includes traditional bank lending plus money flowing through private credit structures and dedicated project vehicles. For context, that exposure is approximately 0.8% of bank assets. Total AI-related capital expenditure by leading tech firms is estimated to exceed $1 trillion over 2025 and 2026. What individual executives said Wells Fargo CEO...