FX168 Financial News (Asia Pacific) reports that BlackRock, the Wall Street asset management giant managing $10 trillion, and Microsoft have launched their largest collaboration to date, raising $30 billion for AI investments. Infrastructure investments will mainly focus on the USA, with NVIDIA providing its expertise in datacenter and factory areas.
Bloomberg reported that BlackRock and Microsoft announced on Tuesday, September 17th, that they, along with the UAE's MGX Investment Company, are seeking $30 billion in private equity capital for this strategic initiative, which will then be used for potential investments of up to $100 billion.
(Source: Bloomberg)
BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink stated in an interview, "Building data centers globally requires trillions of dollars in funding."
He also added that the global AI infrastructure investment partnership has been brewing for months. "This is just a good example of building infrastructure, creating opportunities, and new technologies in the capital markets." #AI Trend #
Both companies stated in their declaration that infrastructure investments, including energy projects, will mainly take place in the USA, with some funds being deployed in partner countries of the USA. Fink mentioned that the plan includes bringing in more investors, with retirement funds and insurance companies eager to carry out long-term infrastructure investments of this kind.
When discussing fundraising, he stated, "We believe this is not a daunting task."
The alliance includes Bayo Ogunlesi's Global Infrastructure Partners, the fund management company acquired by BlackRock for approximately $12.5 billion, MGX from Abu Dhabi, and chip manufacturer NVIDIA, which will provide support to the alliance with its expertise in artificial intelligence data centers and factories.
It is reported that NVIDIA has invested heavily in the development of software, networks, and other technologies, and the company states that these technologies are crucial for quickly building complete AI systems.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's Vice President and President, said in an interview: "The investment opportunities are real and the investment demand is also greater. AI is the next generation general-purpose technology that will drive growth in various sectors of the US and foreign economies."
Smith said that these companies have already discussed these plans with US lawmakers and regulatory agencies.
Microsoft has invested $13 billion in OpenAI and is completely transforming its entire product line around AI capabilities. The software company is significantly increasing its spending on data centers and computing infrastructure to provide these services and states that its ability to serve AI customers is limited by a shortage of chips and data center capacity.
According to Bloomberg industry research, energy producers across the United States are rushing to meet the increasing electricity demand from AI data centers. By 2030, the electricity consumption of these facilities will increase tenfold from the current level.
To meet this demand, energy companies are postponing the retirement of coal and natural gas power plants, planning to build new natural gas power plants, and developing clean energy sources such as solar and wind power. The power competition has even led to an increased time required to connect new data centers to the grid, with timeframes of up to 7 years in the Virginia data center corridor.
"Today, it is clear that power supply is not only a constraint on data center construction, but also a constraint on overall electrification," Ogunlesi said in an interview. "The US has not seen a significant increase in power generation, so we must accelerate the development of new renewable energy power plants."
Microsoft has been in talks with Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, who is developing his own plan to collaborate with investors and technology companies to significantly expand the computing infrastructure for AI products.