Powering the AI Era | Goldman Sachs

A historic inflection point

Railroads unlocked new markets and gave rise to industries like mail-order retail in the 1800s. Electrification boosted productivity by enabling innovations like the moving assembly line in the early 1900s. Then, as the 1900s gave way to the new century, the digital economy was built upon nascent internet infrastructure, which connected global markets and gave rise to e-commerce.

Today, acceleration in artificial intelligence (AI) and its demands on data and computational power could have far-reaching implications for digital infrastructure, and is already driving significant capital expenditure, according to Goldman Sachs Investment Banking in its report, “Powering the AI Era.” Big tech companies are expected to invest $1 trillion in AI by 2027.¹ Data center demand is outpacing supply, and AI server racks will require 50 times more power than cloud computing data centers five years ago