There's a new visualization making the rounds that maps every major AI investment deal. And if you stare at it long enough, you start to see something deeply weird.

The money isn't flowing into AI. It's circling in AI.

Company A invests in Company B. Company B buys from Company A. Both report "growth." Valuations go up. Rinse, repeat.

This isn't a market. It's a merry-go-round.

The Circular Money Machine

An independent researcher built an interactive map tracking over $2 trillion in AI-related investments and commercial deals. The visualization shows how capital flows between Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and about 50 other companies.

And the pattern is impossible to miss: the money keeps looping back.

Here's how it works. Microsoft invests billions in OpenAI. OpenAI spends that money buying Nvidia chips and Microsoft cloud credits. Microsoft reports cloud revenue growth. Nvidia reports record chip sales. OpenAI gets valued higher because it's "scaling fast."

Everyone wins. Except the money never actually left the circle.

As the site notes: "55% of this is promises. Not cash. Promises."

The Nvidia Gravity Well

If you zoom out, you see another pattern: almost every AI company orbits Nvidia. They have to. There's no real alternative if you want to train large models at scale.

But Google is trying to change that. They've built a parallel universe around their TPU chips, and they're throwing billions at companies like Anthropic to use them. Anthropic is now playing both sides—$68 billion in commitments from Google, but they're still buying Nvidia chips too.

It's like watching two rival casinos give the same gambler house credit and calling it "market competition."

The Math That Doesn't Math

Here's where it gets ridiculous. OpenAI has raised roughly $346 billion in funding commitments (a mix of equity, debt promises, and cloud credits).

But their spending commitments? Over $800 billion.

Let me repeat that. They've committed to spend more than twice what they've raised. And they're currently burning through cash so fast that they're projected to lose $14 billion in 2026 alone.

Their entire business model is built on the assumption that by 2029, they'll be profitable enough to make all of this make sense. If they're not, someone's holding a very expensive bag.

And it's not just OpenAI. This pattern repeats across the ecosystem. Startups raise billions, spend it on infrastructure from the same investors who funded them, and report "traction" based on how fast they're burning cash.

The Oracle Twist

And then there's Oracle.

A database company—yes, the one that sells boring enterprise software—is now 65% exposed to a single AI customer relationship after taking a 15% stake in TikTok's new US operation.

That's not diversification. That's a bet-the-company move on one deal. If TikTok stumbles, Oracle is in trouble. If the TikTok deal unravels politically, Oracle is in serious trouble.

What This Means for Investors

If you own AI stocks—or index funds that are heavily weighted toward tech—you need to understand what you're actually holding.

You're not investing in a new technology sector. You're investing in a financing loop where the same dollars get counted multiple times as "revenue," "growth," and "traction."

Some of these companies will survive and thrive. Nvidia is printing money (for now). Microsoft has a real business outside of AI. But a lot of these valuations are built on promises, not profits.

And when the music stops—when investors demand actual returns instead of growth narratives—someone's going to be left standing when the chairs run out.

The Bottom Line

Circular financing isn't inherently bad. Companies invest in each other all the time. Strategic partnerships are normal.

But when $2 trillion is sloshing around in a closed loop, and more than half of it is "commitments" rather than cash, and the biggest players are all financially intertwined, you don't have a market.

You have a shell game.

And the house always wins—until it doesn't.