The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that in the world of technology, new opportunities are vast because the current AI-driven shift could dwarf past tech disruptions. Guest columnist Allen Lau writes that the dot-com blowout in 2000 took with it many high-flying infrastructure players, including Global Crossing, Cisco and Sun Microsystems. These companies did not decline because they were infrastructure providers. They declined because they failed to identify the right business model before their capital ran out or were disrupted by alternatives, including open or free systems, despite having the first-mover advantage. Other infrastructure players thrived. Amazon, seen mostly as an e-commerce site, earned 70 per cent of its operating profit from Amazon Web Services -- hosting start-ups and big players such as Netflix. AWS eliminated the need to buy hardware and continually cut prices, especially in its earlier years, catalyzing a new wave of businesses and ultimately driving demand while increasing AWS's revenue. In hindsight, the dot-com boom was real -- it simply took time for usage to catch up to the hype. Services, such as AWS, that provide access to AI, will continue to benefit as demand soars.