AI data center play 'reinforced' by Alphabet, Microsoft spending
Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) expects to spend $75 billion in capital expenditures in 2025, adding to the billions of dollars Big Tech companies are investing in artificial intelligence (AI). Blackstone's (BX) vice chairman and CFO, Michael Chae, joins Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton on Asking for a Trend to discuss his expectations for AI infrastructure and Big Tech AI spending. "The growth in data that is created and stored in the world has been about 100 [times] over 15 years," Chae explains. "So this is a real mega-trend, irrespective of current events." Regarding China's DeepSeek, which rattled investors, Chae says, "The continuing decline of the cost of compute will lead to more usage and faster adoption, and that drives overall demand for data centers." He highlights that this view seems to have been "reinforced publicly," as the likes of Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) are continuing to spend big on AI infrastructure. Watch the video above to hear more from Chae, including how Blackstone is leveraging AI. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Asking for a Trend here. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.
