Dan Ives AI Boom Call: 85% Is Still Ahead of Us

The short answer: Dan Ives' AI boom call is simple. The Yorkville Ives partner says the AI boom is less than 15% of the way through, which means roughly 85% is still ahead. He says supply and demand won't reach equilibrium until around 2029. He bases the call on chip demand he saw firsthand in Korea and on enterprise AI use cases that are moving from spending to monetization.

From The Pomp Podcast, hosted by Anthony Pompliano, with guest Dan Ives, partner at Yorkville Ives and one of Wall Street's most-followed tech analysts. Episode released October 22, 2026.

Dan Ives' AI boom thesis comes down to one line: we're still early. On the October 22 episode of The Pomp Podcast, the Yorkville Ives partner and one of Wall Street's most-followed tech analysts told host Anthony Pompliano that, in his view, the AI buildout is less than 15% complete. That's where the "85% still ahead" framing comes from. He had just returned from Korea, and he says what he saw there made him more bullish, not less, even as markets sold off and investors talked about bubbles.

When Pompliano asked what could slow AI demand, Ives turned it around. He argued consumer AI is just going mainstream and physical AI "hasn't even started." By his estimate, the cycle is less than 15% of the way through, and he doesn't expect equilibrium between AI supply and demand until 2029. That matches what he has said elsewhere: in an October 8 interview with Yahoo Finance, he called negative AI headlines "buying opportunities" and said, "We're in a third inning of AI revolution."

His point is that the market keeps treating each pullback like the end of the cycle, while the fundamentals point to more spending, more use cases and more earnings ahead. He expects the market to grind higher through what he calls "white-knuckle moments."

Korea sits at the center of the AI memory chip trade, and Ives went to see demand on the ground. He said memory demand is up about 30% in the last four to six weeks. That was his own estimate from the trip, not a published industry figure. Published reporting does point to a tight market: Micron expects memory supply conditions to be "much tighter" in fiscal 2027 and 2028, and Samsung has said the shortage could persist through 2028, according to The Korea Herald.

His read: investors are skittish, but the fundamentals tell a different story. He also described the Korean market's retail enthusiasm. He compared stocks there to K-pop as a national passion, which he says can stretch volatility in both directions. He expects Korea's KOSPI index to make new all-time highs next year.

His message to AI bears, which Pompliano asked him to deliver at the end of the episode, was simple: "take a trip to Korea, Taiwan, see what the demand looks like, and see if you come back here and you're still as bearish."

Ives thinks so. He argued that for every dollar spent on AI capital expenditure, five to six dollars ripple across the rest of tech. In his view, the Street is underestimating tech earnings by 15% to 25% over the next 12 to 18 months.

He also pointed to a gap that's closing. Big tech has spent heavily on capex, and monetization lags behind that spending. He says we're getting toward the end of that gap. He cited enterprise software names like Palantir and Snowflake as places where AI use cases are multiplying, based on his conversations with corporate IT leaders. For scale, J.P. Morgan Global Research projects $900 billion of AI capital spending in 2026, and says the early returns so far have come through revenue growth at the big cloud providers.

He also said his S&P 500 target for this year is 8,000. That's a forecast, not a certainty.

To his credit, Ives didn't dismiss every concern. He agreed that rising bond yields raise the cost of capital. He estimates roughly 20% of the AI buildout will need debt or convertible financing. J.P. Morgan has also noted that funding for the buildout is shifting from free cash flow toward debt and equity raises. That's why companies like CoreWeave and Oracle have become flashpoints. We break that down in CoreWeave and Oracle debt: are AI debt fears overdone?

Where he says the bears go wrong is extrapolating from narratives. He listed the "SaaS apocalypse," circular financing, and late-1990s fiber comparisons. His argument is that this cycle is different because big tech is funding it from strong balance sheets and free cash flow, and the data centers and use cases are real.

Pompliano raised this paradox. Ives' answer: narratives. Many investors were scarred by 1999, 2007 or other crashes, and every pullback reminds them of the last one. He also noted that many newer retail investors have never lived through a full cycle, which makes them more susceptible to doom headlines.

He used an analogy: a flight from New York to California hits a thunderstorm over the Midwest. One passenger panics and texts relatives. The other watches Netflix with a glass of Cabernet. The turbulence is the same. The reaction is what differs.

Ives named a few risks worth watching:

He said the AI cycle is less than 15% of the way through, implying about 85% is still ahead, with equilibrium not expected until 2029.

Dan Ives is a partner at Yorkville Ives and one of Wall Street's most-followed technology analysts.

No. He argues the buildout is funded by profitable big tech companies with real use cases, unlike the late-1990s fiber bubble.

On the episode, he said he believes the S&P 500 will reach 8,000 this year. It's a forecast, not a guarantee.

Anthony Pompliano is an entrepreneur, investor, and author who serves as Chairman and CEO of Silvia, Inc (SVIA) and invests through Pomp Investments. He is the host of The Pomp Podcast, where he interviews founders, investors and economists about bitcoin, markets, AI and the economy. This article is based on his October 22, 2026 conversation with Dan Ives, with outside facts checked against the sources listed above. Follow Pomp on X (https://x.com/APompliano).

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This article reflects the opinions of the guest and host as shared on The Pomp Podcast. It is guest opinion, not investment advice. Do your own research before making any investment decision.