Broadcom makes the chips behind the AI boom. On Monday, its boss told a Singapore audience that many people funding that boom “have no clue what they are investing in.”

Some, Hock Tan said, expect so much that “it’s almost like they are in a casino.” Crypto has heard that line before.

Crypto Was Called a Gambling Contract First

In February 2023, the late Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger urged the US to ban crypto. He called it “a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house.

Regulators went further. In 2023, UK lawmakers said retail crypto trading “more closely resembles gambling than it does a financial service.”

The European Central Bank’s Fabio Panetta called coins with no asset behind them “a gamble disguised as an investment asset.” India’s central bank chief, Shaktikanta Das, likened crypto trading to gambling.

Tan aimed at the cash pouring into AI labs that still lose money building new models. OpenAI is earning about $50 billion a year at its current pace, according to Bloomberg.

Tan said that proves the business can work, not that it will profit. That same figure sparked OpenAI’s revenue gap fears last week.

Then came the arcade. Tan said companies are burning money on AI “tokens,” the units of text AI services charge for. These are not crypto tokens.

“When you are a kid you go to a video arcade, you play. Your parents give you $10 of tokens, you finish it in 10 minutes and you haven’t learned anything. That’s what happening in enterprises today,” he added.

Broadcom Still Expects $230 Billion From AI Chips

Notably, however, Tan is not betting against the boom. In September, Broadcom forecast about $58 billion in AI chip sales for fiscal 2026. It sees roughly $115 billion in 2027 and $230 billion in 2028.

Demand will beat supply for at least two more years, he said, according to The Standard. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, on the same stage, said hardware would stay scarce for two to three years.

So what could stop it?

Money, Hock Tan said. Not chips, memory, or power.

Firmus Grid, an Nvidia-backed Australian data center firm, pulled a planned $5.5 billion share sale.

Broadcom’s own stock fell nearly 4% last Thursday in a selloff in AI stocks over OpenAI’s revenue.

Broadcom Stock (AVGO) Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance

It was down almost 2% at market open, trading at $356.28 as of this writing.

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