Reuters reported that hyperscalers are borrowing heavily to fund artificial intelligence expansion, and yields are rising as investor demand cools. The debt binge is pushing up the price of financing while the companies at the top keep building. Ordinary people don’t get a vote in that machine. They get the bill, the heat, and the power drain.
Who Has the Power
The U.S. government will award GlobalFoundries $300 million to develop silicon photonics technology for more efficient AI data centers, Reuters reported. The funding is aimed at faster AI chip links. That’s public money moving straight into the infrastructure of corporate AI, with the state acting as a subsidy desk for the same firms that already dominate the field.
The New York Times said the United States controls about 80% of global computing power that drives AI and is home to about 5,500 data centers, about 10 times the next closest country. The Times said U.S. companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta control about 80 percent of global computing power that drives AI, according to Epoch AI. The concentration is stark. A handful of firms sit on the digital machinery while everyone else is told this is progress.
The Times also said Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle are projected to spend about $750 billion this year on data centers, chips and other AI infrastructure, up from roughly $400 billion last year, according to Goldman Sachs. It said by 2029, AI infrastructure investment is forecast to top $1 trillion globally, up from $318 billion last year, according to IDC. The scale is obscene, and the money keeps flowing upward.
Who Pays for the Buildout
The report said today there are about 20 million AI chips crammed into the data centers that underpin the technology’s growing abilities and usage worldwide, according to Epoch AI. That figure is expected to double roughly every nine months, putting the world on pace to have about 200 million of the chips by the end of 2028 — 10 times current levels. More chips, more servers, more extraction. The growth is measured in hardware, but the costs land in electricity, land, and utility hookups.
At the most advanced AI data centers, every gigawatt of power equates to roughly $40 billion to $60 billion in costs, including servers, land, connectivity and utility hookups, according to industry estimates. Last year data centers consumed 64 gigawatts of electricity globally, roughly as much electricity as Germany consumes, according to SemiAnalysis. By the end of 2030, that is expected to quadruple, eclipsing the power used by all countries in South America and Africa combined. The appetite is massive. The burden is too.
The Times said China’s National Energy Administration has estimated the country’s electricity use for data centers will reach the equivalent of around 91 gigawatts by 2030, or about 6 percent of total use, up from 19 gigawatts last year. It said China’s top tech companies are building new AI chips and data centers, and that this year Huawei, ByteDance and Alibaba are expected to spend $111 billion on data centers and other AI investments, according to Bernstein Research. The race between corporate blocs and states keeps widening the same hole.
What They Call Competition
The report said the U.S.-China race threatens to leave the rest of the world behind. France, Germany and other nations are trying to encourage data center construction across the European Union, which has 5 percent of global AI computing power, according to a report by AI developers and policy experts in the region. Europe has been hampered by electricity and land access, permitting and financing. That’s the language of the system: access, permits, financing. The gatekeepers decide who gets to build, who gets to consume, and who gets pushed aside.
The Times also said the Persian Gulf has pledged billions to build data centers, but the war in Iran has affected plans. Even the grand plans of rulers and investors bend around war, markets, and state power. The people below still don’t get any say in what gets built, where it goes, or who pays for it.
The whole setup runs on concentration. The United States holds about 80% of global computing power that drives AI, a few companies control most of it, and governments are handing out public money to keep the machine humming. The debt is rising. The yields are rising. The power stays where it always does, at the top.