The numbers that dominate the AI infrastructure conversation are the big ones. Amazon’s $200 billion annual capex plan. Microsoft’s $190 billion. Alphabet’s $175 to $190 billion. Meta’s $115 to $145 billion. The combined ~$700 billion that four hyperscalers have committed to spending on AI infrastructure in 2026 — nearly double what they spent in 2025. Those numbers are real and extraordinary and have generated a secondary industry of analysis about what they mean for the AI buildout, the GPU supply chain, and the long-term trajectory of the AI economy. There is a different number that gets far less coverage, partly because it comes from the other end of the demand signal and partly because it makes an uncomfortable argument about the gap between AI infrastructure investment and AI infrastructure utilisation. That number is 5%.