On the road of rapid development of AI, giants from various industries are beginning to join forces.

On Tuesday local time, asset management giant BlackRock and technology giant Microsoft announced that they will join forces to establish a consortium to raise $30 billion for investment, mainly focusing on AI infrastructure in the USA.

Another chip giant, Nvidia, will provide support.

The alliance of giants

This move on Wall Street is quite a show of strength.

It is reported that in addition to BlackRock, Microsoft, and chip manufacturer Nvidia providing support for the alliance, participants in the alliance also include Bayo Ogunlesi's Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) and the UAE AI investment company MGX.

The investment project is named the Global Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Investment Partnership (GAIIP), and aims to strengthen the supply chain and energy procurement for artificial intelligence.

The financing target is to raise an initial capital of $30 billion, with a future goal of raising up to $100 billion in funds (including debt financing).

In the future, these funds will mainly be invested in energy infrastructure needed to power AI workloads, such as AI data centers and electrical utilities.

It is worth mentioning that infrastructure investments (including energy projects) will mainly take place in the USA, with some funds deployed in partner countries.

Regarding this collaboration, major industry leaders have expressed their commitment to building future infrastructure in a sustainable manner and providing it with power.

When it comes to raising funds, BlackRock CEO Fink stated that this is not a daunting task.

He pointed out that mobilizing private capital to build AI infrastructure such as data centers and electrical utilities will unleash trillions of dollars in long-term investment opportunities.

'Building data centers worldwide requires trillions of dollars in funding. GAIIP is just a great example of capital market infrastructure development, creating opportunities, and new technologies.'

Microsoft President Smith also believes that investment opportunities are real and investment demand is greater. AI is the next generation of general technology, which will drive growth in various fields of the economy in the USA and abroad.

"The capital expenditure required for AI infrastructure and the new energy to power it exceeds what any company or government can support."

"This financial partnership will not only help drive technological progress, but also enhance national competitiveness, security, and economic prosperity."

Previously, Microsoft has invested $13 billion in backing the AI super unicorn OpenAI.

Nvidia's Huang Renxun also mentioned that accelerated computing and generative AI are driving the increasing demand for AI infrastructure in the next industrial revolution.

Nvidia will leverage its expertise as a full-stack computing platform to support GAIIP and its portfolio companies in the design and integration of AI factories to drive industry innovation.

The urgency of AI infrastructure

Behind the alliance of Wall Street giants is the USA's desire to maintain a leading edge in the AI field.

Last week, including OpenAI's Ultraman, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, and Google executives, the big shots of the American technology and energy giants visited the White House to discuss the huge demand for AI in energy with the Biden administration.

After the meeting, the White House announced the establishment of an AI inter-agency working group to help promote the development of American datacenters.

Currently, the development of AI large models requires a large amount of computing power, which has led to increasingly high energy consumption.

According to the International Energy Agency, the power consumption of a single request on ChatGPT is about 10 times that of a typical Google search.

By 2026, the power consumption of the AI industry is expected to be at least 10 times that of 2023.

As early as the beginning of this year, whether it's Nvidia's Jensen Huang, or OpenAI's Ultraman, or Tesla's Musk, the big shots have all warned that the end of AI is in the electrical utilities and other renewable energy industries.

Goldman Sachs has also stated that by 2030, AI is expected to trigger a 160% surge in the power demand from datacenters. The demand for energy by AI is so great that it will force the long-stagnant power demand in the US to increase substantially in the remaining time of this century.

Currently, energy producers across the United States are competing to meet the surging demand for electrical utilities from AI datacenters.

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 constructing clean energy sources such as solar and wind power plants.