I recently joined Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton on Yahoo Finance’s Market Domination Overtime to discuss the rapid and extraordinary growth in data center demand, largely driven by AI. Companies that once focused solely on selling software are now becoming industrial giants, investing heavily in infrastructure. Some of these tech firms are outspending even the largest car manufacturers!
Clayco’s business has doubled over the past year, with growth driven by two main factors: inference and AI training. Inference is the digitization of everything—think of your interactions with Siri or your iPhone. AI training, on the other hand, involves “learning buildings” and absorbs some of the existing infrastructure. The demand for this is off the charts and even taking up some of the inference, causing some of the utility that's already been built to be sucked up by AI. Right now, the gloves are off, and everybody in the business is making massive infrastructure investments.
Inference-driven data centers need to be near population centers to be effective, whereas AI training centers can be more flexible in their location. They need a strong power supply, fiber connectivity, and (one of the major challenges) labor. Large projects can require 800 to 1,000 electricians, so we’re increasingly turning to modular construction and using BIM 3D digital modeling to optimize resources like we’ve never done before. When you build a huge campus of data centers, you have the opportunity to create a fabulous facility right next door. Therefore, we just need to find ways to counteract those limiting factors like labor.
We are living in an unprecedented time where American technology companies and their supply chain are more committed than ever to sustainable practices, clean energy, and finding efficiencies to make the grid work for everyone. These companies are leading the forefront of this movement, and these efforts are driven by utility market requirements rather than political motivations. We’re seeing significant and promising advancements in this area.
On the political front, there’s been a lot of excitement following President Biden’s decision to step down and endorse Kamala Harris. I’ve been actively supporting her campaign, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Despite some technology business leaders endorsing Donald Trump, the current economy is robust, and Kamala will continue the positive momentum we’ve seen in recent years. Business is booming!
This is an exciting time for our industry, and I’m confident we’ll continue to see incredible growth and innovation far into the future.
Watch a clip below and read the full interview here.
