Heading into the long weekend, both airfares and gas prices are cheaper than they’ve been in recent years, but that doesn’t mean that travel is easy to book for consumers, or easy to predict if you’re in the industry. We’ll get into it.

But first, let’s talk about the only stock that seems to matter right now, Nvidia, and the massive capex spending companies are making to stay competitive in the AI race.

— Tony Wagner, newsletter editor and Virginia K. Smith, digital editor

Spending on data center infrastructure has played a huge role in powering GDP growth.

On Nvidia’s earnings call this week, CEO Jensen Huang estimated this year alone, artificial intelligence infrastructure spending will total $600 billion. By the end of the decade? Between $3 trillion and $4 trillion.

All of that spending is helping prop up a whole host of companies, in construction, real estate, energy and more.

Data center construction started exploding hand in hand with artificial intelligence. Consulting firm McKinsey and Company estimates  buildouts globally will total nearly $7 trillion. 

“It is really difficult to compare what is happening today to other types of investment,” said Eugenio Aleman with Raymond James. Still, he took a shot. He said it’s analogous to the build-up of the internet itself. 

“We have to go back to the end of the 1990s where we saw this very, very large investment,” he said. 

This September marks five years since the Holiday Farm Fire burned up more than 173,000 acres in Oregon’s McKenzie River Corridor. It’s a scenic mountain town that’s been around since 1900, with mining and timber as its former big industries.