Microsoft and Blackrock team up on $30 billion AI investment

New investments will build data centers and energy projects to help keep up with increasing demand

News By Ellen Jennings-Trace published 19 September 2024

A partnership has been announced between Microsoft and BlackRock in the form of an infrastructure investment unit, the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership (GAIIP). Artificial intelligence has dominated tech spaces in the last few years, and the rapid rate of investments illustrate the confidence tech firms have in the technologies.

The project will aim to ‘enhance American competitiveness’ by building on US soil. The $30 billion fund is likely to be used to develop infrastructure to help meet the demands of AI, such as data centers and energy projects to create new sources of power for their facilities.

This is a crucial consideration when developing AI models, as the tech uses an enormous amount of power and energy to run, as well as increasing emissions by as much as 50% for some firms - leaving the industry with a serious task to mitigate its consumption.

Growth Potential

The energy sector has been singled out by BlackRock as one of the leading opportunities for growth. With the initial $30 billion investment, the partnership hopes to eventually mobilize up to $100 billion in total investment capital when including debt financing.

Chief Executive Larry Fink explained, “Mobilising private capital to build AI infrastructure like data centres and power will unlock a multitrillion-dollar long-term investment opportunity,” he said.

“Data centers are the bedrock of the digital economy, and these investments will help power economic growth, create jobs, and drive AI technology innovation.”

Computing requirements for AI have led to a substantial investment into specialized data centers, so much so that the UK government declared them part of its ‘critical infrastructure’, giving them advanced protections over other tech projects.

Via Financial Times

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