The Balance Sheet - Behind the AI Revolution (March 2026) | Apollo Global | Report

Author: Rob Bittencourt, Partner & Head of Apollo Thematic Investing

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The Core Thesis: HALO is the New Paradigm

Apollo argues that the investment zeitgeist has fundamentally shifted away from capital-light, high-margin software businesses toward what they term HALO — Hard Assets, Low Obsolescence. Factories, fiber, and railroads are back in vogue, driven largely by AI-induced obsolescence fears in the software and knowledge-work sectors.

The casualties of this shift are visible: enterprise SaaS revenue multiples have collapsed 38% in just six months (from ~7.5x to 4.6x EV/NTM revenue as of March 2026), with disruption anxiety also spreading into accounting, insurance brokerage, and wealth advisory.

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The Capital Math is Staggering

Apollo estimates the AI buildout requires $4–5 trillion in digital infrastructure investment by 2030 across data centers, power, chips, servers, and networking. To justify that spend and generate acceptable returns, AI end-user revenue must scale from roughly — a roughly 30–40x increase in five years.