BlackRock CEO Larry Fink: AI data center fears are 'misinformation'

Fink's pushback comes as the AI buildout is starting to change the financing side of the economy. He described the current period as the first time in his roughly 50-year career that he has seen genuine shortages of capital, with part of the pressure coming from the federal government's growing credit demands. He pointed to U.S. national debt rising from roughly $8 trillion in 2000 to $40 trillion today, while AI companies simultaneously need enormous amounts of money for data centers, GPUs and power infrastructure.

BlackRock is trying to address part of that problem by developing ways to securitize GPUs and other chip assets, which could help smaller companies access compute even without strong credit ratings. The firm is working with hyperscalers and chip companies to study how long GPUs retain useful value. If those assets can receive credible residual-value estimates and ratings, they could eventually support a financing market resembling asset-backed securities, according to Fink's remarks.

The AI boom has usually been framed as a shortage of GPUs, power and data-center capacity. Fink is adding another constraint: capital itself. If trillions of dollars are needed for AI infrastructure while government borrowing is simultaneously absorbing more credit, financing costs could become a much bigger part of the technology story, based on his argument.