(Bloomberg) — BlackRock Inc. sees huge growth opportunities in Asia for infrastructure to support an artificial intelligence boom that is also driving demand for energy and water.
Most read on Bloomberg
“The need for data centers over the next five years will be double what currently exists in the markets,” Brad Kim, head of diversified infrastructure for Asia Pacific at BlackRock, said in a briefing on Wednesday. press. “Water infrastructure will need to almost double over the next five years,” he said, referring to cooling mechanisms, “and overall energy consumption will increase by about 50% over the next 10 years in the Asia-Pacific region. »
Globally, increasing demand for electricity is outstripping available electricity supply in many parts of the world, leading to growing concerns about outages and rising prices in the most expensive regions. dense in data centers. Asia is no exception, with tech companies racing to secure long-term contracts to power the data farms that fuel artificial intelligence programs.
Southeast Asia, in particular, has attracted investment in recent months, with companies like Amazon Inc. and Microsoft Corp. who have pledged billions of dollars to build data centers in the region.
Yet Asia lags behind the rest of the world in terms of infrastructure investment, with an estimated need of $1.7 trillion per year through 2030 to maintain its growth momentum, according to the Asian Bank of development. Although government reforms could close up to 40% of the region’s infrastructure gap, the rest will have to come from the private sector, the multilateral lender said.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has already committed to raising $30 billion for AI investments from tech giant Microsoft, with most of the funds expected to be pumped into U.S. locations. Google also partnered with it to purchase up to 300 megawatts of solar power from Taiwan’s New Green Power, a BlackRock portfolio company.
Listen on Zero: What can artificial intelligence really do to fight climate change?
“Every client we talk to wants to invest in infrastructure, particularly in the energy transition and digital-related infrastructure,” said Charlie Reid, co-head of climate infrastructure for Asia Pacific at BlackRock. “There is a real convergence of infrastructure investment opportunities” between the two themes, he said.
–With help from Sheryl Tian Tong Lee and Stephen Stapczynski.
(Updates with context on the global data center boom in third paragraph)
Most read from Bloomberg Businessweek
©2024 Bloomberg LP