Gerstner says Musk is building the largest data centers on Earth and eventually in space.
“Elon is building the biggest data centers on Earth and eventually in space of anybody, and nobody is better at turning those electrons into tokens.”
Gerstner notes OpenAI has not built data centers while Microsoft, Oracle, CoreWeave, and SoftBank are building them.
“I haven't heard them break ground on any data center. I hear Microsoft building data centers, Oracle building data centers, CoreWeb building data centers, SoftBank building data centers.”
Gerstner says AI capex jumped from $150B in 2023 to over $500B this year in committed purchase orders.
“In 2023, these companies spent $150,000,000,000 on capex building out data centers. This year, over 500,000,000,000. That's not speculative. That is purchase orders. Those are buildings.”
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“In 2023, these companies spent $150,000,000,000 on capex building out data centers. This year, over 500,000,000,000. Though, that's not speculative. That is purchase orders. Those are buildings. That's power.”
Gerstner reports Oracle, Amazon, and Microsoft are all moving forward with nuclear-powered data center projects.
“Amazon is buying this nuclear powered Talon data center facility, and now Microsoft this week announces with CEG that they're going to bring 3 Mile Island out of retirement.”
Gerstner warns data centers acquiring independent energy producers could trigger regulatory intervention on grid pressure.
“if you start to see data centers pick off the independents, that could put pressure on the grid in a way that might bring the regulators in to voice their opinion.”
Gerstner quotes Jensen predicting data center infrastructure will double from $1T to $2T in four to five years.
“And over the course of the next four to five years, we'll have 2,000,000,000,000 of data centers powering software around the world and it will all be accelerated compute.”