Lucy Hines

AI Infrastructure at Scale: Financing the Power-Constrained Grid | Global Conference 2026

Brian Sullivan, Lucy Heintz, Douglas Kimmelman, Karl Kuchel, Rajit Nanda, Michael Zeltkevic, Doug Kimmel, Carl Cuscelli, Lucy Hines

Projected to approach one trillion dollars in global capital expenditures, the AI energy transition is being driven by hyperscalers utilizing long-term power purchase agreements to de-risk infrastructure financing amid rising electricity costs. As the industry shifts from a focus on speed to market to speed to power, data center locations are increasingly dictated by the immediate availability of reliable energy and data sovereignty constraints, with nations like Saudi Arabia positioning themselves as strategic inference hubs. While supply chain advantages and government permitting acceleration are accelerating deployment, the sector faces significant consolidation risks and financing hurdles for unproven storage technologies as the race for compute capacity intensifies.