What is the Insurrection Act? Is Trump trying to dial back tensions with Brazil? Why was Letitia James indicted? Will a government shutdown hurt the economy? The United States's artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom might be an economic bubble that could burst, comparable to the dot-com bust in the early 2000s, according to the International Monetary Fund.

When Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chipmaker Nvidia, met with Donald Trump in the White House last week, he had reason to be cheerful. Most of Nvidia's chips, which are widely used to train generative artificial-intelligence models, are manufactured in Asia. Earlier this year, it pledged to increase production in the United States, and on Wednesday Trump announced that chip companies that promise to build products in the United States would be exempt from some hefty new tariffs on semiconductors that his Administration is preparing to impose. The next day, Nvidia's stock hit a new all-time high, and its market capitalization reached 4.4 trillion, making it the world's most valuable company, ahead of Microsoft, which is also heavily involved in A.I. Welcome to the A.I. boom, or should I say the A.I. bubble? It has been more than a quarter of a century since the bursting of the great dot-com bubble, during which hundreds of unprofitable internet startups issued stock on the Nasdaq, and the share prices of many tech companies rose into the stratosphere.

AI startups experienced their best funding year ever, raising a record $9.33 billion, or nearly 10% of last year's total VC investments that reached $99.5 billion, an 18-year high since the dot-com era.Getty The Artificial Intelligence (AI) winter is definitely over. As venture capital (VC) funding nears record since the dot-com era, with U.S. companies raising $99.5 billion versus $119.6 billion in 2000 according to the latest PwC MoneyTree Report, AI startups also experienced their best year ever, raising a record $9.33 billion, or nearly 10% of last year's total VC investments. Since 2013, VC investments in AI startups had regularly increased over the following four years, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 36%. However, AI-related funding significantly jumped last year, increasing 72% compared to 2017, despite a dip in deal activity, with 466 startups funded from 533 in 2017, and after increasing for four years. The report also reveals that seed-stage deal activity among AI-related companies rose to 28% in the fourth-quarter of 2018, compared to 24% in the three months prior, while expansion-stage deal activity jumped to 32%, from 23%.

AI startups experienced their best funding year ever, raising a record $9.33 billion, or nearly 10% of last year's total VC investments that reached $99.5 billion, an 18-year high since the dot-com era.Getty The Artificial Intelligence (AI) winter is definitely over. As venture capital (VC) funding nears record since the dot-com era, with U.S. companies raising $99.5 billion versus $119.6 billion in 2000 according to the latest PwC MoneyTree Report, AI startups also experienced their best year ever, raising a record $9.33 billion, or nearly 10% of last year's total VC investments. Since 2013, VC investments in AI startups had regularly increased over the following four years, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 36%. However, AI-related funding significantly jumped last year, increasing 72% compared to 2017, despite a dip in deal activity, with 466 startups funded from 533 in 2017, and after increasing for four years. The report also reveals that seed-stage deal activity among AI-related companies rose to 28% in the fourth-quarter of 2018, compared to 24% in the three months prior, while expansion-stage deal activity jumped to 32%, from 23%.

If you've played Texas Hold'em, then you know how tough it is to be a good poker player. Lots of venture capitalists like to play poker, so it wasn't surprising to see one who thought to himself "let's see how good artificial intelligence (AI) really is". He consulted a team of engineers and computer scientists to see where they might be able to exploit the AI agent named Lengpudashi. They then played 36,000 hands over 5 days and the AI agent kicked the isht out of them. We'll stick to playing rock-paper-scissors with AI, but all of this is leading to some serious visibility for AI as an emerging technology – which as investors make us want to get some skin in the game.