We’re watching nations scramble for something more valuable than petroleum. AI infrastructure. And the numbers reveal why every government is suddenly paying attention.
“The next oil rush runs on silicon.”
NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang projects the AI infrastructure market will hit $3-4 trillion by 2030. That’s not gradual growth. That’s economic transformation at warp speed.
But here’s what makes this different from every other tech boom.
The Infrastructure Imperative
McKinsey’s research shows we’ll need $6.7 trillion for data centers by 2030, with $5.2 trillion specifically for AI processing loads. These aren’t just big numbers. They’re bigger than most national economies.
The International Energy Agency puts it simply: “AI is emerging as a general-purpose technology, much like electricity” and “there is no AI without energy.”
Sound familiar? Replace “energy” with “oil” and you have the 20th century’s defining resource battle.
The New Geopolitics
Europe sees the writing on the wall. The EU just announced €200 billion for InvestAI, including €20 billion specifically for AI gigafactories. These facilities will house 100,000 latest-generation AI chips each.
Four times more powerful than current AI factories.
Meanwhile, the US and China eye each other warily. NVIDIA actively seeks government approval to market Blackwell chips in China despite ongoing restrictions. Officials anticipate 15% of revenue from licensed sales there, but formal regulations remain unpublished.
The Scale Transformation
Ten years ago, a 30-megawatt data center was considered large. Today, 200-MW facilities are normal. Amsterdam, Dublin, and Singapore have placed moratoriums on new data center builds because they lack power infrastructure.
Vacancy rates hit historic lows. Grid access becomes the bottleneck.
This mirrors oil’s strategic chokepoints. Control the infrastructure, control the economy.
What We’re Really Watching
The market cap of AI-related S&P 500 firms grew $12 trillion since 2022. Global data center investment nearly doubled to half a trillion dollars in 2024. Electricity consumption for these facilities grows 12% annually.
Four times faster than total electricity consumption.
We’re witnessing the birth of digital oil. Nations that secure AI infrastructure capacity today will dominate tomorrow’s economy. Those that don’t will find themselves dependent on others for the most critical resource of the digital age.
The infrastructure race has begun. And unlike oil, this resource doesn’t run out. It multiplies.
The question isn’t whether AI infrastructure will become the new oil. The question is which countries will control the wells.
