Energy, AI, and Infrastructure
WEF 2025
It can be exhausting to watch and assess the various panels at the annual World Economic Forum conference. But I am a glutton for punishment and have watched some of the key panels and made notes. Over the next few posts I will share my notes and impressions of key WEF 2025 panels. If you would like another viewpoint, I highly recommend
’s reflections at The Firebreak substack.The first session I examined is a conversation between Larry Fink, Chairman of Blackrock investments, and Peng Xiao, CEO of AI company G42. The conversation, Financing AI Infrastructure, was hosted by Bloomberg and moderated by Francine Lacqua.
Here are some key points:
AI and blockchain are the big thing right now and they need LOTS of energy and in the short- to mid-term that means natural gas with "some decarbonization" (this comment was added by Mr. Fink as an afterthought.) In the longer-term it will have to be nuclear. According to Peng Xiao, one AI data centre uses 1 GW of energy; and going forward the world will need an additional 200-300 GW to build out the AI data centres necessary to help "democratize" finance and political systems.
Mr. Fink floated the idea that in jurisdictions where energy costs are high AI data centres maybe should have the "sovereignty of an embassy" and be "digital embassies" -- I'm not sure what that means exactly -- would that mean they could bypass national regulations regarding permitting, emissions, energy use, labour laws?
offers the interpretation that the tech companies and the investors will own the power like a sovereign entity whilst the “old industries” connected to the grid will struggle with supply and price dictated by those who own the grid. David also reminded me that Mr. Fink and Mr. Xiao did not give a thought to consumer electricity prices. Clearly, the attention and priorities are the AI data centres and the energy infrastructure necessary for them. Suddenly “climate change” or “climate impacts” are of secondary importance when the need of someone like Mr. Fink is for reliable and affordable energy.Mr. Fink was positively giddy about the idea that blockchain and AI will solve the world's corruption and identity problems, which will transform security, finance, and voting. He said there will be a rapid global digitalization of currency. India and Brazil are the example and are ahead because of inflation and the need to fight corruption and money laundering. But he warned that all of the transactions that people will be making using their own AI agents (working for them) will overload the current system and that more broadly for international financial transactions the SWIFT cannot keep up with all the transactions, therefore crypto currencies are going to play a bigger and bigger role.
Adding to that, Mr. Fink casually asserted that all of us will have various "digital or AI agents" that will carry out digital tasks for us including the buying and selling of shares and making our lives more secure and efficient. Does he see this like Iron Man’s J.A.R.V.I.S?
Both Mr. Fink and Mr. Xiao said that deepfakes are getting almost impossible to tell if they are real or not, therefore, blockchain could create a personal digital ID that could be put in a digital wallet that can be used to prove identity and authenticity for every transaction including voting. (Interestingly, at a different session the Spanish Prime Minister advocated for every European to have a digital ID that would be required to login to the internet so that there would be no more anonymity on the web.) Related, Mr. Fink said that Blackrock will no longer need to do block voting, something for which his company is often criticized, because AI is able to identify and tokenize every owner of record for stock so each owner could do their own proxy voting. Mr. Fink said, "you could tokenize voting…you could do everything. It will change how we think, how we live, what we do."
Lastly, after saying that the valuation of bitcoin could go up to $500,000 to $700,000 Mr. Fink joked that investors should "always go against Davos and you'll make a lot of money." Then he chuckled and the audience tittered nervously.
"You could tokenize voting…you could do everything. It will change how we think, how we live, what we do." — Larry Fink, WEF 2025
Observations
It seems that Mr. Fink and Mr. Xiao are cheerleading for a type of digital overseer network that will manage how we live -- monitoring transactions, voting, our digital presence, digital currency, and our energy systems.
Mr. Fink and Mr. Xiao seem to be advocating for a rethink of energy systems and infrastructure that will preference AI data centres over all else in society, including consumers. Climate change no longer seems to be a concern for energy systems. Whereas in previous years “decarbonization” was the priority for Mr. Fink and western energy infrastructure, this year quickly built reliable, affordable, and secure energy for AI is the priority.
Can the rest of us expect natural gas power plants for more reliable and cheaper electricity? That remains to be seen, but it seems that the priority and speed will be given to building natural gas power plants for the AI data centres not us citizens who seem to be of last concern at the bottom of the ladder. But never fear! Another session on energy and AI, which I will discuss in the next installment, the audience was told AI will not only make energy systems more efficient, it will help consumer behaviour too.
Apparently, living up to the WEF motto of “improving the state of the world,” all of this will be a vast improvement and democratization of the world.
A brave new world indeed.
Watching Davos this week, was entertaining and makes me wonder what disasters they may plan as they now realize the world does not want their leadership.