David Belle argues that Big Tech's massive spending on AI infrastructure isn't wasteful but economically necessary. The demand for data centers is forcing governments to upgrade energy grids and housing, creating jobs and GDP growth. Belle, involved in European energy projects, says the media's skepticism ignores how these investments benefit entrepreneurs and workers down the line.
I'm continuously going to have a contention with this negative reporting on the amount of CapEx spend that firms are undergoing, and there's two real reasons for this. Um, the first one is that businesses are supposed to spend money, especially on things that they think are going to be revolutionary. Um, and to be honest, I would rather take the opinion of Google, Tesla, Meta, you know, all of these large, massive, massive companies over that of a Financial Times commentator, purely for the reason that there is a profit motive there, whereas the media loves to sell negativity. The second reason why I have a contention is that this is possibly the first time in decades where governments are being forced to update the infrastructure in their countries to actually sustain the level of demand that we are experiencing, whether it's over energy, whether it's over, you know, the actual grid functioning, whether it's over, you know, anything to do with it, housing near, you know, key data center spots. Loads of different things are being upgraded purely because these companies want to spend money. Now, if you think for whatever reason that AI is going to go away, then yes, you have a point. But I would consider you to be a retard. If that were the case. Now, off of this, if they're spending a hell of a lot on all of this infrastructure where they're forced to— now they're forced to do this because, okay, if data centers are sucking up too much energy, what happens then to the consumer? Do energy prices go way, way higher? You know, so they're forced to build out all of this infrastructure. What is that going to do to GDP? We know that share prices are intrinsically linked to the growth rate. Okay, if you have negative growth, the share price is unlikely— it could do— is unlikely to go higher. So if you've got this massive infrastructure build-out, whether the cash is coming from private or if it's forced deployment from the government— even better, by the way, because it's much longer duration— um, GDP growth is still likely to go higher as a function of output. And so I don't understand this real disconnect where people aren't marrying the two concepts up. I like the fact that businesses are spending loads of money on this revolutionary technology because it causes all of these other effects, but I don't understand why these commentators are not seeing these other effects come to fruition. Now I'm literally on the ground with all of this. I'm involved in energy in Europe now as well as you know, investing and trading and whatever else I do, financial media, whatever the fuck you want to call what I do. And I am having conversations with politicians about all of this, genuine conversations. I was at Parliament having lunch with a politician about grid buildout just 3 weeks ago now, and the desire is so unbelievable to actually start expanding things, to start, you know, actually attracting capital for all of these projects, that that is going to filter down into the labor market. It's going to filter down into people's pockets, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you are just a normal worker. Yes, there might be an inflation element, but you're going to get inflation anyway. And if growth comes with that, fantastic. Real growth is likely to increase. But there's this real bizarre disconnect at the moment where it's almost like people would prefer firms to just undergo buybacks. Fine, okay, if you're an investor, fine. But then the likes of the FT, it doesn't make sense because they are kind of left-leaning now. It doesn't make sense they're complaining about these buyback, uh, about this CapEx spend and all of this. It's like they just latch on to the negativity. Be a little bit more positive, and your portfolio probably reflect that positivity as well, rather than consistently being a Michael Burry and just wanting to be negative about everything. It's a, it's a joke, absolute joke.
