Wall Street races to exploit AI’s $1 trillion surge
The post Wall Street races to exploit AI’s $1 trillion surge appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
The artificial intelligence boom has sent Wall Street bankers, private equity giants, and debt financiers into a frenzy as they scramble to get a piece of the $1 trillion—and possibly $2 trillion—needed to power AI’s takeover of the world. Data centers, power grids, and communication networks are the battlegrounds, and nobody wants to sit this one out. Morgan Stanley reportedly hosted a high-profile dinner this weekend in New York to strategize. The guest list read like a who’s who of finance: Apollo Global, Blackstone, KKR, Ares Management, and Oaktree Capital. But it wasn’t a war room, it was a call for unity. The message was simple — “AI is big enough for everyone, so let’s stop fighting and start collaborating.” The data center gold rush Data centers are the backbone of AI. They’re massive, power-hungry, and ridiculously expensive. Building just one of these “AI factories,” as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang likes to call them, can cost $12 billion. And Wall Street can’t get enough. Deutsche Bank has worked on $17 billion worth of data-center financing over three years. JPMorgan has created a dedicated infrastructure team to manage its AI workload. Even then, the demand is overwhelming. Bloomberg says one banker admitted his firm is juggling so many data-center deals that they can’t hire fast enough. Private equity is diving in headfirst. Blackstone shelled out $10 billion to acquire QTS Realty Trust, which owns dozens of U.S. data centers. It teamed up with the Canada Pension Plan to buy AirTrunk, an Asian data-center network, for $15.5 billion. And they’re just getting started. Developers are eyeing projects worth tens of billions globally, from the U.S. to northern England, where a former battery factory site is being repurposed for a new hyperscale center. Even BlackRock’s Larry Fink is in on the action. He’s…
Filed under: News - @ November 18, 2024 8:26 am