Albert Edwards, Societe Generale's global chief strategist in London, said the mid-1990s environment bears similarities to today's AI frenzy. According to Sina Finance, he drew the comparison after Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok published a research note saying total factor productivity, or TFP, has been weak.

Slok said AI's boom is already visible in investment data and stock valuations, but not yet in productivity statistics. Edwards said that view reminded him of the logic behind his bearish call on Asia in the mid-1990s, when he argued that too many people believed the region's economic miracle narrative and that cheap capital flowed into those economies, leading to capital misallocation.

Edwards said the Asian financial contagion crisis that followed was fully predictable, much like the U.S. internet bubble in the late 1990s. He said he remains skeptical of the market view that the current AI boom is not a bubble, although he acknowledged that the AI dividend may simply not have shown up in TFP data yet because it is still early.

He also cited research from Rob Parenteau, who previously worked at Allianz, saying gross corporate investment has risen quickly while net corporate investment has barely moved. Edwards said if U.S. corporate investment is rising sharply only in nominal terms and not in real terms, his skepticism about the AI rally would be justified.

State Street's technology sector ETF has already risen 40% this year, while the semiconductor ETF has nearly doubled.