Larry Fink predicts birth of futures market for computing power

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink
Photo: AFP

BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said global demand for computing power is so huge that traders will one day be able to bet on a futures market for it, Bloomberg reports.

“A new asset class will be buying futures of compute,” Fink said during a panel discussion Tuesday at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, adding that the US lacks enough of that capacity, as well as chips and memory. “We just don’t have enough compute power right now.”

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is investing tens of billions of dollars in data centers and energy companies through a partnership with Microsoft Corp., Nvidia Corp. and MGX, an investment vehicle in the United Arab Emirates, among others. The consortium led by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners has announced it will acquire Aligned Data Centers for about $40 billion, and GIP is teaming up with private equity firm EQT to buy power provider AES Corp. for $10.7 billion in cash.

“There is not an AI bubble,” Fink said. “There is the opposite. We have supply shortages. Demand is growing much faster than anyone has ever anticipated.”

On the same panel, Brookfield Corp. CEO Bruce Flatt said the global economy is being transformed to be based on data centers, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

“For the next 10 years, we will be rewiring the global economy,” he said.

...To this revelation and prediction by Larry Fink we can and should add the following.

First. Due to the explosive development of new computer technologies, including AI, energy is becoming a key factor. Without electricity, all these data centers will remain just iron boxes.

Second. Energy is oil, gas, nuclear power, and a little bit of “green energy”. It means that the United States will try to take control of energy sources worldwide. Venezuela and Iran are the first steps toward what Trump called the emergence of an “energy superpower” in the United States.

Third. We can expect further military tensions around countries holding reserves of energy resources essential to the United States.

Fourth, and most importantly, as new technologies take over the bulk of global energy production, other industries will begin to experience catastrophic energy shortages.

And this is where new battles will begin!

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