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Carlyle's Jason Thomas – AI Slowdown & Financing Bubble Warnings (2026)
Carlyle strategist Jason Thomas warned in September 2026 that an AI slowdown is 'more likely than not' and that AI data-center financing echoes pre-2008 mortgage lending risk. His comments add a prominent institutional voice to growing Wall Street skepticism about AI capital expenditure sustainability.
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## Overview
Jason Thomas, Head of Global Research & Investment Strategy at Carlyle Group Inc., has emerged as a prominent voice warning about risks in the AI investment boom, speaking from Carlyle's Global Investor Conference in Washington (Bloomberg, September 15).
## Key Claims
- Thomas said an AI slowdown is "more likely than not" (Bloomberg, September 15).
- He separately warned that lenders' approach to financing data centers has a "troubling similarity to the model applied to mortgages before the financial crisis," drawing a direct parallel to pre-2008 mortgage lending practices (Bloomberg, September 15).
- Thomas also commented that the Federal Reserve is under "enormous pressure" to deliver a 25 basis-point rate cut/hike around the time of these remarks (Bloomberg, September 15).
## Context
These comments arrive amid a broader wave of institutional skepticism about AI capital expenditure sustainability, echoed by other strategists (e.g., Wells Fargo's Ohsung Kwon cutting S&P 500 targets citing tech-sector AI risks) and bulls like George Noble of Noble Capital Advisors, who called AI "the biggest reallocation of capital in history" while still flagging AI bear-case risks (Bloomberg, September 15).
## Why It Matters
Thomas's mortgage-crisis analogy specifically targets the financial structuring of AI data center debt — an area of growing scrutiny given the scale of recent AI infrastructure financing (bond sales, private credit, junk-bond wave) across the industry. This connects to broader concerns about AI data center debt quality, systemic risk concentration in a handful of AI-linked borrowers, and potential parallels to prior credit bubbles.
## Related Developments
This warning sits alongside a growing set of 2026 market narratives questioning whether AI infrastructure spending is outrunning revenue realization, with implications for private credit exposure, bank balance sheets, and equity valuations of AI-adjacent companies.