⚠️AI CREDIT IS STARTING TO FLASH RED while equities are still ignoring the risks: The price paid for AI usage is falling rapidly, with Silicon Data’s LLM Token Expenditure Index down -29% in August to a record low ~$0.97 per million tokens. This is down more than -50% from its May peak near $2.05. This comes even as OpenRouter token volume rose ~47% MoM in August, while dollar spending increased only ~7%, showing that AI usage is growing far faster than spending. Meanwhile, hyperscaler credit spreads have surged to near their widest levels on record, even as hyperscaler stocks have rebounded since late July. In other words, credit investors are demanding significantly more compensation for AI infrastructure risk, while equity investors are still pricing in relentless demand and rising returns. The problem is that more AI usage does not automatically mean more profits if token prices collapse faster than volumes rise. With hundreds of billions of dollars being poured into data centers, falling usage prices could put pressure on utilization, cash flows, and returns on all that new capacity. The AI boom may still be growing in volume, but credit markets are increasingly questioning whether it is growing profitably.