SA国际传媒

As AI technology advances, it鈥檚 putting ever-increasing strain on existing data centers and associated power sources. To keep up, we鈥檒l need to build a lot more infrastructure.

That鈥檚 the broad thinking behind an effort today, the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership, that seeks to put up to $100 billion in private equity and debt financing into building and expanding data centers.

Participants include , , and United Arab Emirates AI-focused investment fund . The partnership plans to invest primarily in the U.S., although it may pursue some investments in what it called 鈥減artner countries.鈥�

The partnership says it will seek to raise and put to work up to $30 billion in private equity financing, with up to $100 billion in total investment including debt. It will also draw support from , which plans to offer expertise in the design and integration of AI infrastructure.

The effort comes amid a boom time for data infrastructure assets. Shares of leading data center REITs, such as and are up sharply over the past two years. And tech giants like Microsoft, and are giant facilities across the U.S.

Just earlier this summer, Microsoft said it spent $55.7 billion on capital expenditures for its fiscal year 鈥� up 75% from the prior year 鈥� primarily to build data centers.

Power-hungry data centers are also putting increasing pressure on existing energy infrastructure. Per , AI is poised to drive a in data center power demand by 2030.

Partly that is because AI is an energy-intensive offering. Goldman estimates that on average, a query needs nearly 10x as much electricity to process as a search. As AI offerings get more advanced, it鈥檚 likely power demands will be even more intensive.

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