As the artificial intelligence boom enters a more demanding phase, global markets paused this week to ask a question that ambition had long deferred: whether the vast capital flowing into AI infrastructure can ever be made to yield a return. From Seoul to Hong Kong to Tokyo, technology giants announced major capital moves that unsettled rather than reassured investors, while two pivotal events — Nvidia's earnings and a Federal Reserve address at Jackson Hole — loomed as the week's true reckoning. In this moment of collective hesitation, markets revealed something older than any trade cycle: th