The world’s leading companies from the software, investment and microchip industries are to join forces to set-up an enormous new investment vehicle aimed at developing next generation AI (artificial intelligence) infrastructure and datacentres.

Microsoft (MSFT:NASDAQ) and BlackRock (BLK:NYSE), the world’s largest software company and asset manager respectively, hope to pull in $30 billion in private equity capital in a new joint fund, catchily named the ‘Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership’. It will be supported with expertise from Nvidia (NVDA:NASDAQ), the world’s biggest microchip design company.

Alongside debt financing, the total funding might hit $100 billion, an enormous slug of new capital to design and build next-generation datacentres, while also funding various energy projects in the US to meet the soaring power requirements of datacentres.

As AI and cloud computing boom, the need for AI accelerator chips is rising fast, leading to an exponential increase in power consumption. According to Goldman Sachs research, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search. 

Goldman Sachs estimates that datacentre power demand will grow 160% by 2030 with the rise of generative AI and surging GPU (graphics processing units) shipments causing datacentres to scale from tens of thousands to 100,000-plus accelerators, shifting the emphasis to power as a mission-critical problem to solve.

Recent research showed the datacentre power needs of Microsoft, Alphabet (GOOG:NASDAQ) and Meta Platforms (META:NASDAQ) combined was larger than entire nations, like Nigeria and Ireland.

On 20 September Microsoft announced a partnership with US energy firm Constellation Energy (CEG:NASDAQ) that will see the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant reopened to meet Microsoft’s insatiable datacentre energy demands while also helping to address its commitments to cut carbon emissions.

Three Mile Island was the scene of a 1979 nuclear disaster, at the time the world’s worst. The project has the support of the US Department of Energy, Pennsylvania politicians, and residents. The site will be renamed Crane Clean Energy Center.

Microsoft wants to be carbon negative by 2030, and by 2050 it aims to have removed from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975. 

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