CEREBRAS Systems CEO Andrew Feldman criticized the "AI doomer narrative" during an Oct. 13 appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, saying some AI leaders should stay off the public stage.
Feldman, whose company supplies specialized AI chips to OpenAI, Block, Figma, GSK, and others, contrasted dire predictions—models breaking containment, extinction by decade's end—against concrete gains like eradicating cancer. He acknowledged AI's inherent risks but argued that regulatory handwringing obscures deployment realities.
The sharper complaint: data center operators have botched community relations in the U.S. fueling local opposition. "NIMBY-ism," Feldman said, stems not from principled skepticism but from an industry that failed to engage neighborhoods the way power and oil-and-gas companies historically do.
He pointed to Brazil, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Mexico, and Sweden as countries actively courting data center investment—evidence that opposition is not inevitable but driven by poor stakeholder management.
Feldman also dismissed concerns that compute efficiency gains would cannibalize chip demand. Hardware vendors can improve efficiency while model makers push capability boundaries simultaneously, he said, implying the demand curve remains steep.
